Nazca Plate

The Nazca Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the southeastern Pacific Ocean. It moves eastward and subducts beneath the South American Plate along the Peru–Chile Trench.

Peru–Chile Trench: A deep-ocean trench marking the boundary where the Nazca Plate subducts beneath the South American Plate. This trench marks the plate boundary where the Nazca Plate begins descending beneath South America.
East Pacific Rise: A mid-ocean ridge system where tectonic plates separate and new oceanic crust forms in the eastern Pacific. Seafloor spreading there helped create crust now carried by the Nazca Plate.
1960 Valdivia earthquake: A magnitude 9.5 earthquake in southern Chile on 22 May 1960, the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake. It ruptured the Nazca–South America plate boundary and generated a Pacific-wide tsunami.
Andean orogeny: The long-term mountain-building process that formed the Andes along western South America. Nazca Plate convergence and subduction are central drivers of Andean mountain building.
Subduction: The process by which one tectonic plate sinks beneath another into the mantle. The Nazca Plate’s eastward descent is a major example of this process.
Cocos Plate: An oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific that subducts beneath Central America and southern Mexico. It shares a spreading-boundary history with the Nazca Plate and lies to its north.
2010 Chile earthquake: A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off central Chile on 27 February 2010. Its rupture illustrates how strain accumulates and releases along the Nazca subduction zone.
Pacific Ring of Fire: A broad zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanoes around the Pacific basin, associated mainly with plate boundaries. The Nazca subduction margin forms part of this circum-Pacific belt.
Andes: A continental mountain range along western South America, shaped largely by Nazca Plate subduction. Subduction of the Nazca Plate drives uplift and volcanism along this mountain chain.
Pacific Plate: The largest tectonic plate, underlying much of the Pacific Ocean basin. It borders the Nazca Plate at the East Pacific Rise, where the plates move apart.

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