Tectonic plates move because of convection currents in the mantle. Heat from Earth’s core causes the semi-molten rock in the mantle to flow, dragging the plates above them.

Earth’s lithosphere is made up of 15 major plates and around 40 smaller ones. They move slowly, anywhere from 1 to 20 centimeters per year, driven by convection currents deep within the mantle.

This part of the planet plays a crucial role in shaping surface features like mountains and volcanoes, and it drives plate tectonics through slow-moving convection currents.

Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech Familiar Process, Unfamiliar Location In geology, convection refers to the movement of heated material rising while cooler material sinks, creating a ...

Convection occurs when heated material rises toward a planet’s surface and cooler materials sink, creating a constant conveyor belt of sorts. On Earth, convection deep in the mantle provides the ...

Earth’s crust, about 40 kilometers thick in continents and 6 km in ocean basins, is too thin and cool to support convection, Solomatov explained. But he suspected the crust of Venus might have ...

Convection currents in the mantle (with the hot mantle floating to the surface and the cooler, denser mantle going downwards) are what push these tectonic plates.

The current consensus, though still debated, models a dynamic system in which plates move as part of a gravity-driven convection system that pushes young hot plates away from spreading ridges and ...

Without plate tectonics, the Earth would look very different than it does today. Our mountain ranges, oceans, volcanoes, and even entire continents all get their recognizable feat ...

Convection currents in Earth’s mantle drive the movement of tectonic plates. Tectonic plates interact at their boundaries in three primary ways: they move apart, collide, or slide past one another.

Silicon is a primordial element, created during the Big Bang or by nuclear fusion during a supernova. It's the eighth most abundant element in the observable Universe, but the third most abundant on ...

This flow is what drives the movement of tectonic plates on Earth’s surface, causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the shifting of continents. Heat from the Earth’s core causes convection ...