The Scotia Plate (Spanish: Placa Scotia) is a tectonic plate on the edge of the South Atlantic and Southern oceans. Thought to have formed during the early Eocene with the opening of the Drake Passage that separates South America from Antarctica, it is a minor plate whose movement is largely controlled by the two major plates that surround it: the South American Plate and the …

Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that explains how major landforms are created as a result of Earth’s subterranean movements. The theory, which solidified in the 1960s, transformed the earth sciences by explaining many phenomena, including mountain building events, volcanoes, and earthquakes. In plate tectonics, Earth’s outermost layer, or lithosphere —made up of the crust …

Strike-slip tectonics is concerned with the structures formed by, and the tectonic processes associated with other zones of lateral displacement within the Earth's crust or lithosphere, such as transform boundaries.It is one of the three main types of plate tectonic regime (and respective plate boundaries), the others being extensional tectonics (divergent boundary) and thrust …