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Tectonic Plates

Wouldn't you know it, the Earth's crust is not solid mass,but instead made of many moving plates called tectonic plates. A couple of google searches later, and I learned that there are somewhere between 15 and 20; it's hard to tell because some of the plate boundaries are too deep in the ocean to locate. I can say for certain that there are seven major plates and at least eight minor plates.

Of course, now I want to know where my chosen country (Peru) falls when it comes to plates. According to this map, I would be led to believe that it is on the South American plate boundary, which confused me because google told me it's on the Nazca Plate. Come to find out, Peru is on both of them, so I learned something new today.

Being where it is, Peru is located on what is called a divergent plate boundary. This means that two plates are moving away from each other, which is a cause for earthquakes, as well as the moving plates making way for molten rock to rise up from the mantle. This is also a cause for volcanic eruptions. In fact, Peru's location puts it in the ring of fire, a belt of volcanoes that surrounds most of the Pacific Ocean, and contains two-thirds of the world's volcanoes.

map of Earth in puzzle pieces

Comments

  1. Ana GGSeptember 2, 2024 at 9:43 AM

    As a follow up, the tectonic plates near Peru are not easy but the one boundary that is very common for all the countries along the ring of fire is a convergent boundary (subduction zone), where the Nazca plate is crashing into the South American one!
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_American_Plate

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