List of tectonic plates

Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere.

The plates are around 100 km (62 mi) thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called sima from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (sial from silicon and aluminium).

Geologists generally agree that the following tectonic plates currently exist on Earth's surface with roughly definable boundaries.

Some models identify more minor plates within current orogens (events that lead to a large structural deformation of Earth's lithosphere) like the Apulian, Explorer, Gorda, and Philippine Mobile Belt plates.

Terranes are fragments of crustal material formed on one tectonic plate and accreted to crust lying on another plate, which may or may not have originated as independent microplates: a terrane may not contain the full thickness of the lithosphere.

Map of Earth's 16 principal tectonic plates, showing plate boundary types:
Divergent :
Spreading center
Extension zone
Convergent :
Subduction zone
Collision zone
Transform :
Dextral transform
Sinistral transform
Plate tectonics map from NASA
Map showing Earth's principal tectonic plates and their boundaries in detail
The new Global Tectonic Map with the subdivision of the continents, oceans and mobile mountain belts in ca. 1200 smaller plates. Legend: green: terrane (microplate) boundaries in the continental blocks; cyan: terranes of the oceanic plates; orange: terranes inside the mobile belts; blue: oceanic transform faults; red: fault zones in the continental and mountain belt domain; purple: main subduction zones and suture zones; orange dots: volcanoes.
Basic geological regions of Australia, by age
Map of chronostratigraphic divisions of India
North American cratons and basement rocks