Minor plates
Topic: Continental Drift, Sea-floor Spreading and Plate Tectonics · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 4 "Distribution of Oceans and Continents"
Meaning
Minor plates are the smaller pieces of the lithosphere, the earth's rigid outer shell. They sit between or along the edges of the seven major plates. Their edges are often busy zones of earthquakes and volcanoes, because they are squeezed between big plates. NCERT (Class 11) lists five minor plates:
- Cocos: between Central America and the Pacific plate
- Nazca: between South America and the Pacific plate
- Arabian: mostly the Saudi Arabian landmass
- Philippine: between the Asiatic and Pacific plates
- Caroline: between the Philippine and Indian plates, north of New Guinea
Example
The Arabian plate carries most of the Arabian Peninsula, including Saudi Arabia. It is one of NCERT's five minor plates.
Don't confuse with
- Major plates: there are seven, including the Antarctica plate. "Antarctica is a minor plate" is a common exam trap. It is a major plate.
- Microplates beyond NCERT (e.g. Burma, Juan de Fuca): these are real small plates, but they are not in NCERT's list of five.