Mapped: Tectonic Plate Boundaries and Their Types

Mapped: Tectonic Plate Boundaries and Their Types

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Looking at a heat map of where earthquakes have occurred in the last 70 years forms a glowing x-ray of tectonic plate boundaries.

Tectonic plates—or massive moving slabs of rock—fit together like puzzle pieces, making up the lithosphere or the upper crust of the Earth. In the map above, we take a look at the types of boundaries based on research from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

There are three major ones, as summarized below.

The Three Types of Plate Boundaries

Divergent boundaries occur when two tectonic plates are moving away from each other. As a result, they can create new valleys and oceanic crust, sometimes resulting in volcanoes.

The Arabian and African plate have a divergent boundary and caused the 1995 earthquake (magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale) near the Gulf of Aqaba.

Meanwhile, convergent boundaries are areas where two tectonic plates move towards each other. This leads either to collision and the Earth’s crust is pushed upwards, often leading to the formation of mountains, like the Himalayas.

Or subduction occurs, where one plate moves beneath the other. Subduction has caused some of the most devastating earthquakes in modern history. This includes the 1960 Valdivia Earthquake, the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, and the 2011 Japan Earthquake. The expected earthquake in the Pacific, colloquially called “The Big One” will occur because of a convergent boundary.

Finally, transform boundaries are regions where two tectonic plates slide horizontally past each other. This can cause frequent seismic activity along fault lines. The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the 2023 Türkiye Earthquake occurred on the San Andreas Fault and the Anatolian Fault respectively.