ABSTRACT
Plate Tectonics Plate tectonics is the paradigm, developed during the 1960s, by which the majority of large-scale topographic features on the Earth’s surface can be explained. Plate tectonics also explains the kinematic and dynamic behaviour of the outer parts of the Earth in terms of rigid lithospheric plates. These plates, which comprise the uppermost mantle and in most cases both continental and oceanic crust, ride on a relatively weak viscous asthenosphere and move relative to each other over the Earth’s surface (Figure 8.1). The plate motion is driven by mantle convection, the main mechanism by which heat, derived from radioactive decay, is transferred from the Earth’s deep interior to the surface.
