Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of continental drift, an idea developed during the first decades of the 20th century. Plate tectonics came to be accepted by geoscientists after seafloor spreading was validated in the mid-to-late 1960s.
A lithosphere is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years or more. The crust and upper mantle are distinguished on the basis of chemistry and mineralogy.
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second plate, the heavier plate dives beneath the other and sinks into the mantle. A region where this process occurs is known as a subduction zone, and its surface expression is known as an arc-trench complex. The process of subduction has created most of the Earth's continental crust. Rates of subduction are typically measured in centimeters per year, with rates of convergence as high as 11 cm/year.
A convergent boundary is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a plane where many earthquakes occur, called the Wadati–Benioff zone. These collisions happen on scales of millions to tens of millions of years and can lead to volcanism, earthquakes, orogenesis, destruction of lithosphere, and deformation. Convergent boundaries occur between oceanic-oceanic lithosphere, oceanic-continental lithosphere, and continental-continental lithosphere. The geologic features related to convergent boundaries vary depending on crust types.
Tectonics are the processes that result in the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time.
The Mohorovičić discontinuity – usually called the Moho discontinuity, Moho boundary, or just Moho – is the boundary between the crust and the mantle of Earth. It is defined by the distinct change in velocity of seismic waves as they pass through changing densities of rock.
Tectonophysics, a branch of geophysics, is the study of the physical processes that underlie tectonic deformation. This includes measurement or calculation of the stress- and strain fields on Earth’s surface and the rheologies of the crust, mantle, lithosphere and asthenosphere.
Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic cumulates. The crust overlies the rigid uppermost layer of the mantle. The crust and the rigid upper mantle layer together constitute oceanic lithosphere.
The Baikal Rift Zone is a series of continental rifts centered beneath Lake Baikal in southeastern Russia. Current strain in the rifts tends to be extending with some shear movement. A series of basins form along the zone for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi), creating a rift valley. The rifts form between the Eurasian Plate to the west and the Amur Plate to the east.
Peter Alfred Ziegler was a Swiss geologist, who made contributions to the understanding of the geological evolution of Europe and the North Atlantic borderlands, of intraplate tectonics and of plate tectonic controls on the evolution and hydrocarbon potential of sedimentary basins. Ziegler's career consists of 33 years as exploration geologist with the petroleum industry, 30 of which with Shell, and 20 years of university teaching and research.
Cape Verde is a volcanic archipelago situated above an oceanic rise that puts the base of the islands 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) above the rest of the seafloor. Cape Verde has been identified as a hotspot and the majority of geoscientists have argued that the archipelago is underlain by a mantle plume and that this plume is responsible for the volcanic activity and associated geothermal anomalies.
Suzanne Yvette O'Reilly is an Australian professor of geology noted for her pioneering contributions to mapping the deep Earth with an interdisciplinary approach. In 2007, the Royal Society of New South Wales awarded her the Clarke Medal for outstanding contributions to Australian geology. She has over 350 peer-reviewed publications with over 40,000 citations, and has supervised more than 40 PhD students to graduation.
Walter D. Mooney is a research seismologist and geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Menlo Park, California (1978–present). He was Chief of the USGS Branch of Seismology from 1994 to 1997.
The Trans-European Suture Zone (TESZ), also known as the Tornquist Zone, is the crustal boundary between the Precambrian East European Craton and the Phanerozoic orogens of South-Western Europe. The zone runs from the North Sea to the Black Sea. The north-western part of the zone was created by the collision of Avalonia and Baltica/East European Craton in the Late Ordovician. The south-eastern part of the zone, now largely concealed by deep sedimentary basins, developed through Variscan and Alpine orogenic events.
Shyam Sundar Rai is an Indian seismologist and a former chair professor at the department of Earth and Climate Science of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. He is known for his researches on the seismic structure of Indian continental lithosphere and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as of the Indian Geophysical Union. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1996.
Alik Ismail-Zadeh is a mathematical geophysicist known for his contribution to computational geodynamics and natural hazard studies, pioneering work on data assimilation in geodynamics as well as for outstanding service to the Earth and space science community. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.
Éric Calais is a French geologist-geophysicist, born in 1964, internationally recognized practitioner of high-precision space geodesy and a pioneer in its applications to measure seismic deformations at the boundaries of tectonic plates and in their interiors. He has been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2017.
Karen Fischer is an American seismologist known for her research on the structure of Earth's mantle, its lithosphere, and how subduction zones change over geologic history.
Irina M. Artemieva is Professor of Geophysics at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel (Germany) and distinguished professor at the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and at SinoProbe at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (Beijing).
James Gregory "Greg" Hirth is an American geophysicist, specializing in tectonophysics. He is known for his experiments in rock deformation and his applications of rheology in development of models for tectonophysics.
