Tectonic plates
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Map courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey,
from This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics
and Wikimedia Commons
from This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics
and Wikimedia Commons
Questions for thought
- Are plates capped with continental or oceanic crust? Consider the North American Plate.
- Are tectonic plates pieces of crust or lithosphere? What is the best answer?
- Which of these "compositional" layers make up a plate - crust, mantle, and core?
- As the Atlantic Ocean opens, what happens to the size of the North American Plate?