What Are Tectonic Plates?
3. Floating Rafts
The solid crust behaves almost like a raft on the more fluid layers below. What is more is that these rafts are constantly moving, albeit very, very slowly. These rafts are known as tectonic plates and they are around 62-miles thick. The part of Earths surface that is moving in this way is known as the lithosphere.
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This includes the crust and some of the upper mantle. We don’t notice this movement because of the incredibly slow rate at which it does move. Indeed, an entire plate will take around a year to move between only one to six inches. At this rate, it will take millions of years for the movement to have any significant impact.
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