Tectonic plates

Tectonic plates are blocks of continental and ocean crust. The earth’s surface is divided into blocks of continental and oceanic crust

Characteristics of plates

• Plates are relatively light and therefore float on the denser rocks of the mantle and asthenosphere.
• Plates are mobile and move extremely slow on rocks of the upper mantle and driven by convective currents generated by radioactivity and geochemical reactions in the core and the mantle.
• A given plate is so rigid that if one part move, the rest move