List of tectonic plates

File:Tectonic plates 2022.svg

Map of Earth's 16 principal tectonic plates, showing plate boundary types:
Divergent: Template:Legend-line Template:Legend-line Convergent: Template:Legend-line Template:Legend-line Transform: Template:Legend-line Template:Legend-line

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Plate tectonics map from NASA

This is a list of tectonic plates on Earth's surface. Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere. The plates are around Template:Convert thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called sima from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (sial from silicon and aluminium). The composition of the two types of crust differs markedly, with mafic basaltic rocks dominating oceanic crust, while continental crust consists principally of lower-density felsic granitic rocks.

Current platesEdit

Geologists generally agree that the following tectonic plates currently exist on Earth's surface with roughly definable boundaries. Tectonic plates are sometimes subdivided into three fairly arbitrary categories: major (or primary) plates, minor (or secondary) plates, and microplates (or tertiary plates).<ref name="Madaan 2020">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Major platesEdit

File:Tectonic plates boundaries World map Wt 180degE centered-en.svg

Map showing Earth's principal tectonic plates and their boundaries in detail

These plates comprise the bulk of the continents and the Pacific Ocean. For purposes of this list, a major plate is any plate with an area greater than Template:Convert

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Minor platesEdit

These smaller plates are often not shown on major plate maps, as the majority of them do not comprise significant land area. For purposes of this list, a minor plate is any plate with an area less than Template:Convert but greater than Template:Convert.

MicroplatesEdit

These plates are often grouped with an adjacent principal plate on a tectonic plate world map. For purposes of this list, a microplate is any plate with an area less than 1 million km². Some models identify more minor plates within current orogens (events that lead to a large structural deformation of Earth's lithosphere) like the Apulian, Explorer, Gorda, and Philippine Mobile Belt plates.<ref>Bird, P. (2003). "An updated digital model of plate boundaries". Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4 (3): 1027. {{#invoke:doi|main}}. http://peterbird.name/publications/2003_PB2002/2003_PB2002.htm.</ref> The latest studies have shown that microplates are the basic elements of which the crust is composed and that the larger plates are composed of amalgamations of these, and a subdivision of ca. 1200 smaller plates has come forward.<ref name ='Hasterok-etal_2022'>Hasterok, D., Halpin, J., Collins, A.S., Hand, M., Kreemer, C., Gard, M., and Glorie, S. (2022); New maps of global geological provinces and tectonic plates. Earth Science Reviews, 2022.</ref><ref name ='van Dijk_2023'>van Dijk, J.P. (2023); The New Global Tectonic Map – Analyses and Implications. Terra Nova, 2023, 27 pp. {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref>

File:JPVD-NGTM2023-Comp2.jpg

The new Global Tectonic Map with the subdivision of the continents, oceans and mobile mountain belts in ca. 1200 smaller plates. Legend: green: terrane (microplate) boundaries in the continental blocks; cyan: terranes of the oceanic plates; orange: terranes inside the mobile belts; blue: oceanic transform faults; red: fault zones in the continental and mountain belt domain; purple: main subduction zones and suture zones; orange dots: volcanoes.

African plate
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- Danakil microplate - a microplate at the Afar triple junction
Antarctic plate
Australian plate
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Caribbean plate
Cocos plate
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Eurasian plate
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|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Demets, C., Gordon, Richard, & Argus, Donald, «MORVEL: A new estimate for geologically recent plate motions» in AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts.</ref>

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- Template:Annotated link – Small tectonic plate in south Iceland, between the Eurasian plate and the North American plate
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Nazca plate
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North American plate
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Pacific plate
Philippine Sea plate
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Scotia plate
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Somali plate
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South American plate
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Ancient tectonic platesEdit

In the history of Earth, many tectonic plates have come into existence and have over the intervening years either accreted onto other plates to form larger plates, rifted into smaller plates, or have been crushed by or subducted under other plates.

The following is a list of ancient cratons, microplates, plates, and terranes which no longer exist as separate plates. Cratons are the oldest and most stable parts of the continental lithosphere, and shields are exposed parts of them. Terranes are fragments of crustal material formed on one tectonic plate and accreted to crust lying on another plate, which may or may not have originated as independent microplates: a terrane may not contain the full thickness of the lithosphere.