What Are Tectonic Plates And How Are They Related To Earthquakes?
The surface of the Earth seems to us to be stable most of the time, but there is a great deal of activity going on below. The surface of the planet is made up from large sheets of solid rock crust called tectonic plates. Some are oceanic plates, because they exist under oceans and some are continental plates, because they exist under land masses. Some plates cross over and have ocean and land above them. The plates of the Earth are in constant motion, but they move very slowly, so slowly that we cannot perceive it with our senses. Special instruments have been developed to study and measure plate tectonics and these have told us a lot about how the Earth formed its continents, and why earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis occur from time to time. When two plates collide together, this is called a fault line and collisions result in earthquakes. If molten rock escapes at the fault line, this is a volcano.
