Misc

Explainer: Earth’s Tectonic Plates

Published

1 year ago

July 10, 2022

Giulia De Amicis

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Carmen Ang

Click to view a larger version of the graphic.

Explainer: Earth’s Tectonic Plates

It’s widely understood that Earth’s lithosphere (or outer crust) is made up of moving slabs of rock, better known as the tectonic plates.

These plates only move a couple of inches each year. However, these tiny movements add up over time and cause some of Earth’s most well-known phenomena. Today, the Earth looks a lot different than it did millions of years ago.

This graphic by Giulia De Amicis provides a brief explanation of plate tectonic theory and shows a map of the seven major plates.

Plate Tectonic Theory

In the early 20th century, German geologist Alfred Wegener published a paper on his theory called continental drift—a hypothesis that Earth’s continents were moving across Earth, and sometimes, even colliding into one another.

According to Wegener’s theory, Earth’s continents were once joined as a single, giant landmass, which he called Pangaea. But over time, Pangaea broke apart and formed the continents as we know them today.

Wegener couldn’t explain why this phenomenon was happening, so at the time, his theory was heavily criticized by his colleagues. But over the years, technological advances allowed scientists to study the Earth more closely, and geologists started to build on Wegener’s theory.

Discoveries like seafloor spreading helped explain the “why” behind continental movement, and eventually, Wegener’s initial continental drift theory morphed into plate tectonic theory. And now, the idea that Earth’s crust is slowly moving beneath our feet is widely accepted.

The Seven Major Tectonic Plates

There are seven major plates, and dozens of minor plates, that make up the outer crust of the Earth. The big seven are:

North American plate
Eurasian plate
Pacific plate
South American plate
African plate
Indo-Australian plate
Antarctic plate

The areas between these plates are known as plate boundaries, and their interactions cause some crazy things to happen on Earth’s surface. There are three types of plate boundaries:

1. Divergent boundary

A divergent boundary is when two plates move away from each other, which creates a fracture in the lithosphere.

A well-known divergent boundary is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs approximately 10,000 miles from the Arctic Ocean all the way down to the south of Africa.

2. Convergent boundary

A convergent boundary is when two plates collide with one another.

If the collision is between oceanic crust and continental crust, the denser oceanic crust slides underneath the other plate, which is a process known as subduction.

When two continental crusts collide, the rock folds and lifts at the boundary, creating mountains like the Himalayas (where the Indian plate meets the Eurasian plate).

3. Transform Boundary

When two plates move parallel to one another, their meeting point is called a transform boundary.

The friction causes tension. Eventually, that tension needs to be released, which can cause earthquakes. The San Andreas Fault is a well-known major transform boundary between the North American and Pacific plates—it caused the infamous San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Misc

Ranked: America’s Best Universities

Evaluated on 19 different metrics, here’s the list of America’s best universities, led by 14 private schools.

Published

5 days ago

November 25, 2023

Pallavi Rao

Ranked: America’s Best Universities

The latest ranking of America’s best universities is here, perfectly timed for the approaching admissions season.

“Best” is of course subjective, and U.S. News and World Report has compiled 19 metrics on which they evaluated more than 400 national universities. Some of them include:

Graduation rates & performance: A four-year rolling average of the proportion of each entering class earning a bachelor’s degree in six years or less. Performance is measured against predictions made by the publishers, and when beaten, the university gains a higher scoring.
Peer assessment: A two-year weighted average of ratings from top academics—presidents, provosts and deans of admissions—on academic quality of peer institutions with which they are familiar.
Financial resources: The average per student spend on instruction, research, student services and related educational expenditures in the 2021 fiscal year.
Debt: A school’s average accumulated federal loan debt among borrowers only.
Pell graduation rates & performance: the same calculation as stated above, but focused only on Pell Grant students, adjusted to give more credit to schools with larger Pell student proportions.

The website’s methodology section details how they sourced their data, the weights assigned to each metric, and their changes over the years.

From the hundreds assessed come the nearly 50 best universities that offer a variety of undergraduate majors, post-graduate programs, emphasize research, or award professional practice doctorates.

Which are the Best Universities in America?

At the top of the list, Princeton University is the best university in the country, known for its physics, economics, and international relations departments. Notably, it’s a rare Ivy league university that does not have a law, medical, or business school.

Here’s the full ranking of America’s best universities, along with annual tuition requirements.

Rank	School Name	State	Tuition
1	Princeton University	New Jersey	$59,710
2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts	$60,156
3	Harvard University	Massachusetts	$59,076
3	Stanford University	California	$62,484
5	Yale University	Connecticut	$64,700
6	University of Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania	$66,104
7	California Institute of Technology	California	$63,255
7	Duke University	North Carolina	$66,172
9	Brown University	Rhode Island	$68,230
9	Johns Hopkins University	Maryland	$63,340
9	Northwestern University	Illinois	$65,997
12	Columbia University	New York	$65,524
12	Cornell University	New York	$66,014
12	University of Chicago	Illinois	$65,619
15	University of California, Berkeley	California	$48,465 (out-state) $15,891 (in-state)
15	University of California, LA	California	$46,326 (out-state) $13,752 (in-state)
17	Rice University	Texas	$58,128
18	Dartmouth College	New Hampshire	$65,511
18	Vanderbilt University	Tennessee	$63,946
20	University of Notre Dame	Indiana	$62,693
21	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	Michigan	$57,273 (out-state) $17,786 (in-state)
22	Georgetown University	Washington, DC	$65,082
22	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	North Carolina	$39,338 (out-state) $8,998 (in-state)
24	Carnegie Mellon University	Pennsylvania	$63,829
24	Emory University	Georgia	$60,774
24	University of Virginia	Virginia	$58,950 (out-state) $22,323 (in-state)
24	Washington University, St. Louis	Missouri	$62,982
28	University of California, Davis	California	$46,043 (out-state) $15,266 (in-state)
28	University of California, San Diego	California	$48,630 (out-state) $16,056 (in-state)
28	University of Florida	Florida	$28,658 (out-state) $6,381 (in-state)
28	University of Southern California	California	$68,237
32	University of Texas, Austin	Texas	$41,070 (out-state) $11,698 (in-state)
33	Georgia Institute of Technology	Georgia	$32,876 (out-state) $11,764 (in-state)
33	University of California, Irvine	California	$47,759 (out-state) $15,185 (in-state)
35	New York University	New York	$60,438
35	University of California, Santa Barbara	California	$45,658 (out-state) $14,881 (in-state)
35	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	Illinois	$36,068 (out-state) $17,572 (in-state)
35	University of Wisconsin, Madison	Wisconsin	$40,603 (out-state) $11,205 (in-state)
39	Boston College	Massachusetts	$67,680
40	Rutgers University, New Brunswick	New Jersey	$36,001 (out-state) $17,239 (in-state)
40	Tufts University	Massachusetts	$67,844
40	University of Washington	Washington	$41,997 (out-state) $12,643 (in-state)
43	Boston University	Massachusetts	$65,168
43	The Ohio State University	Ohio	$36,722 (out-state) $12,485 (in-state)
43	Purdue University, Main Campus	Indiana	$28,794 (out-state) $9,992 (in-state)
46	University of Maryland, College Park	Maryland	$40,306 (out-state) $11,505 (in-state)
47	Lehigh University	Pennsylvania	$62,180
47	Texas A&M University	Texas	$40,607 (out-state) $12,413 (in-state)
47	University of Georgia	Georgia	$30,220 (out-state) $11,180 (in-state)
47	University of Rochester	New York	$64,384
47	Virginia Tech	Virginia	$36,090 (out-state) $15,478 (in-state)
47	Wake Forest University	North Carolina	$64,758
53	Case Western Reserve University	Ohio	$62,234
53	Florida State University	Florida	$21,683 (out-state) $6,517 (in-state)
53	Northeastern University	Massachusetts	$63,141
53	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	Minnesota	$36,402 (out-state) $16,488 (in-state)
53	William & Mary	Virginia	$48,841 (out-state) $25,041 (in-state)

MIT places second, and Harvard and Stanford tie for third. Yale rounds out the top five.

Private universities, including seven Ivy League colleges, dominate the top of the rankings. Meanwhile, the highest-ranked public schools are tied at 15th, both state schools in California.

For affordability, since the higher ranks are populated by private universities, there tends to be a broad correlation of better universities being more expensive. That said, the most expensive school in the top 50 ranks is actually the University of Southern California, tied at 28th, for $68,237/year.

As it happens, also tied at 28th, the University of Florida is the most affordable public school for in-state students ($6,381/year) and Florida State University tied at 53rd, is the most affordable for out-of-staters at $21,683/year.

However these costs are tuition-only, and don’t account for other necessary expenses: accommodation, food, and textbooks.

Best University versus Best “Fit”

Finding the best university for prospective students is more than just perusing a long ranking list.

Aside from the numerous schools present within each university—which can often be the best for specific majors—factors like location, proximity to family, campus culture, the non-academic pursuits (sports, extracurriculars, internships) are also taken into consideration.

In fact, research has found that just attaining a university degree improves future earnings potential and employability.

Furthermore, individual engagement at college (irrespective of the rank of the school in question) plays a far bigger role in learning and general well-being than simply attending a highly-ranked school.

However, for low income and minority students, attending a top-ranked school does improve future earnings considerably. For women, it also often results in delaying marriage and kids, which results in more work-hours and as a result, more pay.