South American Plate

The South American Plate is a major tectonic plate carrying most of South America and part of the southern Atlantic Ocean. Its western boundary with the Nazca Plate drives the Andes’ tectonic activity.

South American Trench: A deep-ocean trench along the Pacific coast of South America where the Nazca Plate descends beneath the continent. It marks the plate’s active subduction boundary along the continent’s Pacific margin.
Plate tectonics: The theory that Earth’s lithosphere is divided into moving plates whose interactions shape the planet’s surface. It provides the framework for defining the South American Plate and its boundaries.
Gondwana: A southern supercontinent that included South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and India. South America’s continental crust was once joined to Africa within Gondwana.
Andean orogeny: The long-term mountain-building processes that produced the Andes along western South America. It is the principal continental-scale result of convergence at the plate’s western margin.
African Plate: A major tectonic plate carrying Africa and parts of the surrounding Atlantic and Indian Ocean floors. It lies across the South Atlantic and diverges from the South American Plate.
Andes: A mountain range extending along western South America, formed through prolonged tectonic processes including subduction. The range records the consequences of convergence along this plate’s western boundary.
Lithosphere: Earth’s rigid outer layer, consisting of the crust and the uppermost mantle. The plate is a moving section of this rigid outer shell.
Pangaea: A supercontinent that assembled most of Earth’s continental crust during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. Its breakup set the larger context for South America’s later separation.
Andean Volcanic Belt: A chain of volcanoes along the Andes, associated with subduction of oceanic plates beneath South America. Its volcanic activity reflects ongoing subduction beneath the plate.
Caribbean Plate: A small tectonic plate beneath the Caribbean Sea and parts of Central America. Its interaction with the South American Plate differs from the large-scale Atlantic spreading boundary.

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