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African Plate
 
 
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The African Plate is a tectonic plate
Tectonic Plate

#REDIRECT Plate tectonics...
 which includes the continent
Continent

A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents ? they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia ....
 of Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges.

The westerly side is a divergent boundary
Divergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary is a linear feature that exists between two List of tectonic plates that are moving away from each other....
 with the North American Plate
North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia....
 to the north and the South American Plate
South American Plate

The South American Plate is a tectonic plate covering the continent of South America and extending eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.The easterly side is a divergent boundary with the African Plate forming the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge....
 to the south forming the central and southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Mid-Atlantic Ridge

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent tectonics plate boundary located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and the longest mountain range in the world....
.






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The African Plate is a tectonic plate
Tectonic Plate

#REDIRECT Plate tectonics...
 which includes the continent
Continent

A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents ? they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia ....
 of Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges.

The westerly side is a divergent boundary
Divergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary is a linear feature that exists between two List of tectonic plates that are moving away from each other....
 with the North American Plate
North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia....
 to the north and the South American Plate
South American Plate

The South American Plate is a tectonic plate covering the continent of South America and extending eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.The easterly side is a divergent boundary with the African Plate forming the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge....
 to the south forming the central and southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Mid-Atlantic Ridge

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent tectonics plate boundary located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and the longest mountain range in the world....
. The African plate is bounded on the northeast by the Arabian Plate
Arabian Plate

The Arabian Plate is one of three tectonic plates which have been moving northward over millions of years toward an inevitable collision with Eurasia....
, the southeast by the Indo-Australian Plate
Indo-Australian Plate

The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the Australia and surrounding ocean, and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and adjacent waters....
, the north by the Eurasian Plate
Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia....
 and the Anatolian Plate
Anatolian Plate

The Anatolian Plate is a continental tectonic plate consisting primarily of the country of Turkey.The easterly side is a boundary with the Arabian Plate, the East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault....
, and on the south by the Antarctic Plate
Antarctic Plate

The Antarctic Plate is a tectonic plate covering the continent of Antarctica and extending outward under the surrounding oceans. The Antarctic Plate has a boundary with the Nazca Plate, the South American Plate, the African Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate, the Scotia Plate and a divergent boundary with the Pacific Plate forming the Pacific...
. All of these are divergent or spreading boundaries with the exception of the northern boundary with the Eurasian Plate (except for a short segment near the Azores
Azores

The Azores is a Portugal archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,500 km from Lisbon and about 3,900 km from the east coast of North America....
, the Terceira Rift
Terceira Rift

The Terceira Rift is a geological rift located amidst the Azores islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It runs between the Azores Triple Junction to the west and the Azores-Gibraltar Transform Fault to the southeast....
).

The African Plate comprises several continental blocks or craton
Craton

A craton is an old and stable part of the continental crust that has survived the merging and splitting of continents and supercontinents for at least 500 million years....
s, stable continental blocks of old rocks, which came together to form the African continent during the assembly of the supercontinent
Supercontinent

In geology, a supercontinent is a landmass comprising more than one continental core, or craton. The assembly of cratons and terrane that form Eurasia qualifies as a supercontinent today....
 Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments. around 550 million years ago. These cratons are, from south to north, the Kalahari
Kalahari craton

The Kalahari craton occupies a large portion of South Africa and consists of the Kaapvall craton, the Zimbabwe craton, the Limpopo belt, and the Namaqua Belt....
, Congo
Congo craton

The Congo craton, covered by the Palaeozoic-to-recent Congo basin, is an ancient Precambrian craton that with four others makes up the modern continent of Africa....
, Sahara and West African craton. Each of these cratons can further be subdivided into even smaller blocks or terrane
Terrane

A terrane in geology is a fragment of crustal material formed on, or broken off from, one tectonic plate and Accretion ? "Suture " ? to crust lying on another plate....
s, sutured along pre-Gondwanan orogenic belts.
Eafrica
The African Plate is rifting in the eastern interior along the East African Rift
East African Rift

The East African Rift is part of the larger Great Rift Valley. It is a continental rift zone that appears to be a developing Divergent boundary....
. This rift zone separates the Nubian subplate to the west from the Somalian subplate to the east. One hypothesis proposes the existence of a mantle plume
Mantle plume

A mantle plume is an upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle . As the heads of mantle plumes can partly melt when they reach shallow depths, they are thought to be the cause of volcano centers known as Hotspot and probably also to have caused flood basalts....
 beneath the Afar region, while an opposing hypothesis asserts that the rifting is merely a zone of maximum weakness where the African Plate is deforming as plates to its east are moving rapidly northward.

The African Plate's speed is estimated at around 2.15 centimeters per year. It has been moving over the past 100 million years or so in a general northeast direction. This is drawing it closer to the Eurasian Plate, causing subduction where oceanic crust is converging with continental crust (e.g. portions of the central and eastern Mediterranean). In the western Mediterranean, the relative motions of the Eurasian and African plates produce a combination of lateral and compressive forces, concentrated in a zone known as the Azores-Gibraltar Fault Zone
Azores-Gibraltar Transform Fault

The Azores-Gibraltar Transform Fault, also called the Azores-Gibraltar fault zone , is a major geologic fault which runs eastward from the eastern end of the Terceira Rift in the Azores, extending through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean Sea....
. Along its northeast margin, the African Plate is bounded by the Red Sea Rift
Red Sea Rift

The Red Sea Rift is a spreading center between two tectonic plates, the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It extends down the length of the Red Sea, stretching from the southern end of the Dead Sea Transform to a triple junction with the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift in the Afar Depression of eastern Africa....
 where the Arabian Plate
Arabian Plate

The Arabian Plate is one of three tectonic plates which have been moving northward over millions of years toward an inevitable collision with Eurasia....
 is moving away from the African Plate.

The New England hotspot
New England hotspot

The New England hotspot, also referred to as the Great Meteor hotspot, is a long-lived volcano hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean. The hotspot's most recent eruptive center is the Great Meteor Seamount and probably created a short line of mid to late-Tertiary age seamounts on the African Plate but appears to be currently inactive....
 in the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
 has probably created a short line of mid to late-Tertiary
Tertiary

The Tertiary is a a term for a Geologic time scale#Terminology 65 million to 1.8 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and an out-of-date definition of the Neogene#Controversy....
 age seamount
Seamount

A seamount is a mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the water's surface , and thus is not an island. These are typically formed from extinct volcanoes, that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from a seafloor of 1,000?4,000 meters depth....
s on the African Plate but appears to be currently inactive.

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