Qestions do you have about plate tectonics

From the deepest ocean trench to the tallest mountain, plate tectonics explains the features and movement of Earth's surface in the present and the past.

Developed from the 1950s to the 1970s, the theory of plate tectonics is the modern update to continental drift, an idea first proposed by scientist Alfred Wegener in 1912 which stated that Earth’s continents had “drifted” across the planet over time. Wegener didn't have an explanation for how continents could move around the planet, but researchers do now: plate tectonics.  

Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer shell is divided into large slabs of solid rock, called “plates,” that glide over Earth's mantle, the rocky inner layer above Earth’s core. Earth’s solid outer layer, which includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, is called the lithosphere. It is 100 km (60 miles) thick, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere—a viscous layer kept malleable by heat deep within the Earth. It lubricates the undersides of Earth's tectonic plates, allowing the lithosphere to move around.

1. How fast do tectonic plates move? There are seven major plates: African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific and South American

2. What are the factors affecting plate tectonics? The force that causes most of the plate movement is thermal convection, where heat from the Earth's interior causes currents of hot rising magma and cooler sinking magma to flow, moving the plates of the crust along with them.

3. What 3 things support the theory of plate tectonics? Modern continents hold clues to their distant past. Evidence from fossils, glaciers, and complementary coastlines helps reveal how the plates once fit together. Fossils tell us when and where plants and animals once existed.

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