North American Plate

A major tectonic plate carrying most of North America, Greenland, and parts of the Atlantic and Arctic ocean floors. Its boundaries include spreading ridges, transform faults, and subduction zones.

Mid-Atlantic Ridge: An underwater mountain chain where seafloor spreading creates new oceanic crust. This divergent boundary forms ocean floor between the North American and Eurasian plates.
Lithosphere: Earth’s rigid outer shell, comprising the crust and uppermost mantle, divided into tectonic plates. The North American Plate is one moving section of this outer shell.
Laurentia: An ancient continental landmass that formed the core of much of present-day North America. Its geological foundation became a central part of the modern plate’s continent.
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake: A magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area on October 17, 1989. It demonstrates the earthquake hazard along the plate’s transform boundary with the Pacific Plate.
Pacific Plate: A major oceanic tectonic plate underlying much of the Pacific Ocean basin. Its motion relative to the North American Plate drives major transform and subduction boundaries.
San Andreas Fault: A major strike-slip fault system in California marking part of the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates. Its lateral motion accommodates much of the relative movement along the plate’s western edge.
Continental crust: The relatively thick, buoyant crust underlying continents. It supports most of the continent carried by the plate.
Rodinia: A supercontinent that assembled roughly a billion years ago and later broke apart. Its assembly and breakup helped shape ancient crust now carried by the plate.
1700 Cascadia earthquake: A great subduction-zone earthquake off the Pacific Northwest, dated to January 26, 1700, by Japanese tsunami records and geological evidence. It reveals the scale of earthquakes possible where an oceanic plate descends beneath this plate.
Juan de Fuca Plate: A small oceanic plate off the Pacific Northwest that is being subducted beneath North America. Its convergence with the North American Plate distinguishes the Cascadia margin from transform segments.

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