Plate facts for kids

A plate can mean different things! Most often, it's a flat dish where you put food to eat. These plates can be made from ceramic, plastic, paper, or styrofoam.

But in geology, a plate is a huge, broken piece of the Earth's outer layer, called the lithosphere. Think of the Earth's surface like a giant puzzle, and these plates are the puzzle pieces!

Earth's Tectonic Plates

The Earth's outer shell, the lithosphere, isn't one solid piece. Instead, it's broken into many large and small sections called tectonic plates. These plates are always moving, though very slowly. They float on a softer, hotter layer beneath them called the mantle.

What Are Tectonic Plates Made Of?

Each tectonic plate includes the Earth's crust and the uppermost part of the mantle. The crust is the very thin, rocky outer layer we live on. Plates can be made of:

• Oceanic crust: This is thinner and denser, found under the oceans.
• Continental crust: This is thicker and less dense, forming the continents.

Some plates contain both oceanic and continental crust, while others are mostly oceanic.

How Do Plates Move?

The movement of these giant plates is driven by powerful forces deep inside the Earth. The main reason they move is because of something called convection currents in the magma of the mantle.

• Imagine a pot of boiling water. The hot water rises, cools, and then sinks, creating a circular motion.
• Similarly, hot, molten rock (magma) rises from deep within the mantle.
• As it gets closer to the surface, it cools and becomes denser, then sinks back down.
• This slow, circular flow of magma drags the tectonic plates along with it, causing them to move in different directions.

Why Is Plate Movement Important?

Even though plates move only a few centimeters each year (about as fast as your fingernails grow!), their movement has a huge impact on our planet. Over millions of years, this slow motion can:

• Create towering mountain ranges.
• Cause earthquakes when plates rub against each other.
• Lead to volcanoes erupting where plates pull apart or one slides under another.
• Form deep ocean trenches.
• Change the shape of continents and oceans over geological time.

Understanding tectonic plates helps scientists explain many of Earth's natural features and events.

Images for kids

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  Plates for food