Tectonic plates are the reason we haveearthquakes , volcanoes , oceans , and continents . Without them shifting around , breaking up , andmaking upso to speak , the surface of our planet would be dead and stark . They ’re as vital as the air we breathe – which is why it ’s significant we lie with where all of them are .
At schooltime , you ’re in all likelihood taught that these plate are terrifically huge , and the Pacific Plate , the North American Plate , and even the delightfully named Juan de Fuca Plate probably fare up . A new study , published in the journalGeophysical Research Letters , cue us all that we do n’t actually know where all of the satellite ’s architectonic plates are , or even how many there are .
A squad of geophysicist led by Rice University have identified the Malpelo Plate , the 57th tectonic plate and the newest of its form in a decennium . It ’s topped by a small island , is tie in to a nearby pelagic rooftree , and is found off the glide of Ecuador , along the Ring of Fire . It ’s wedged in - between the Nazca , Cocos , and Caribbean Plates .
Although there are refinement to it , a plate is basically a part - crust , part - mantle animate being that is push around by the convecting currents of superheated rock beneath them .
The bombastic ones , like the North American Plate , are quite easy to spot . mark by enormous sea ridges , volcanic reach , or oceanic chasm , they can clearly be measured move one way or the other at more or less the same upper – with some major caveats – all across their colossal breadth .
small ace are a small trickier to see , as their movements are partly influenced by the more prevailing monumental ones . This was the event with the Malpelo Plate , which at first had to be observe indirectly .
The researcher mark that the Pacific Plate , which march up against the Cocos and Nazca Plates just west of the Galapagos Islands , appeared to be defying predictions of its movement across the plate ever so slimly . When analyzing the motions of all three , they conclude that something must be nudge them , but no such plate was described on any of the most slip - edge torpedo mapping .
Scouring through a Columbia University database of sonar recordings , the team found that between the Galapagos Islands and the coast of Ecuador lay a telltale pelagic ridge . Putting all the pieces together , they realized that they had find a new tectonic plate .
invitingly , their computation also show that it ’s not just the Malpepo Plate that ’s giving the others a speed boost . Another still unexplored plateful in the region is dislodge up against them too – but in good order now , they have no idea where it is .
The search forPlate 58is now on .
