Plate Tectonics are the way plates move. Boudoirs and converging zones.
Powered by pressures inside the Earth it's metal core, these tectonic plates move at about a rate atop a layer of much hotter rock the Atheosphere. Because of the high temperature and great pressures the uppermost part of the athenosphere is not formed correctly. They move a little bit faster than your fingernails or hair, than it grows in a day. And that is almost nothing in comparison.
Convection currents are made when the core is heated, it becomes less dense than the uppermost rocks and mantle pieces. These rocks when moving, create slow, very slow, vertical movements deep below. Convection currents move mantle pieces only a few centimetres a year. The circulation of these rocks could very well be the force behind the movement of the tectonic plates, over the athenosphere.
Earth's outer crust, the lithosphere, a 'barrel' of plates. Plates tend to be 4 to 40 miles deep. These enormous blocks of Earth's crust vary in size and shape, and have borders that cut through continents and oceans alike. Oceanic crust is much thinner and more dence than that of the continents. There are nine continental plates that are the biggest: North American, South American, Eurasian, African, Indo-Austraillian, and Antarctic. Then there are the major plates that are almost entirly made out of oceanic crust: Pacific, Nazca, and Coco.
None of the world's plates are simple squares. Instead they are made up of:
Mid-Ocean Ridges- where adjoining plates are pulling apart, or diverging, from each other.
Collision Zones- where two continents and/or other plates are being carried in converging plates collide.
Seductions Zones- where two plates converge one is thrust under the descending one into the mantle.
Transform Faults- (see earthquakes for more) Faults where plates grind against each other.
As the giant plates move, separating, or converging along their borders, energies are unleashed and it results in tremors. Mountains and volcanoes are often found where plates converge. Oceans are born and grow wider where plates pull apart.
While all the plates appear to be moving at different relative speeds and independently of each other, 'the whole jigsaw puzzles of plates is exter-connected.' No single plates can move without affecting the other, and the activity of one can influence another thousands of miles away.
This is our plate: The Eurasian. The stars represent London and near Paris.