Pacific Plate

[puh-sif-ik pleyt]

noun

Geology.

1. one of the major tectonic divisions of the earth's crust, comprising four seafloor basins: separated from the Nazca, Cocos, North American, and South American Plates by the East Pacific Rise and San Andreas Fault and bounded in the western Pacific Ocean by a series of major ocean deeps, including the Kuril, Japan, Mariana, Kermadec, and Tonga Trenches.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Pacific Plate¹

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

The Pacific plate is oceanic, which means it has dense rocks and wants to sink beneath the less dense microplate.

From BBC

As the Pacific plate sinks towards the centre of the Earth, it heats up and begins to melt, effectively disappearing.

From BBC

California is at major risk of significant earthquakes because it sits on the edge of a tectonic plate boundary, where the Pacific plate — upon which sits San Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara — is slowly moving northwest relative to the North American plate, upon which sits San Francisco, the Central Valley and Big Bear Lake.

From Los Angeles Times

That can illustrate subtle tectonic plate action between major earthquakes, illustrating how the Pacific plate, where L.A. is located, is nudging northwest relative to the North American plate, where the Mojave Desert is located.

From Los Angeles Times

For her PhD-research, Diaz-Recio Lorenzo looked at the copepods that she collected at hydrothermal vents in the Lau-basin, on the border of the Australian and the Pacific plate, near the island of Tonga.

From Science Daily