NET, IAS, State-SET (KSET, WBSET, MPSET, etc.), GATE, CUET, Olympiads etc.: Plate Tectonics Basics Geography Notes on Introduction

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Basics for Plate Tectonics

Plates: Broad rigid segments of lithosphere that floats on the underlying Asthenosphere.

  • Thickness: 100 - 150 km Tectonic activity - Breaking and bending of lithosphere and boundary interactions between plates.
  • Plate tectonics: Scientific achievement of the decades of 1960s.
  • Based upon 2 concepts -Continental drift and Sea floor spreading.
  • Term β€˜PLATE’ -1st used by Canadian Geophysicist J. T. Wilson (1965) .
  • W J Morgan and Le Pichon elaborated the concept of plate tectonics in 1968.
  • The concept is based upon the theories of continental drift, paleomagnetism and sea-floor spreading.