African plate in the context of "Apulian Plate"

The South Aegean Volcanic Arc is a volcanic arc in the South Aegean Sea formed by plate tectonics. The prior cause was the subduction of the African plate beneath the Eurasian plate, raising the Aegean arc across what is now the North Aegean Sea. In the Holocene, the process of back-arc extension began, probably stimulated by pressure from the Arabian plate compressing the region behind the arc. The extension deformed the region into its current configuration. First, the arc moved to the south and assumed its arcuate configuration. Second, the Aegean Sea opened behind the arc because the crust was thinned and weakened there. Third, magma broke through the thinned crust to form a second arc composed of a volcanic chain. And finally, the Aegean Sea plate broke away from Eurasia in the new fault zone to the north.

The extension is still ongoing. The current southern Aegean is one of the most rapidly deforming regions of the Himalayan-Alpine mountain belt. It is approximately 450 km long and 20 km to 40 km wide and runs from the Isthmus of Corinth on the Greek mainland to the Bodrum peninsula on the Turkish mainland.

The Arabian plate is a minor tectonic plate in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres.

It is one of the three continental plates (along with the African and Indian plates) that have been moving northward in geological history and colliding with the Eurasian plate. This collision is resulting in a mingling of plate pieces and mountain ranges extending in the west from the Pyrenees, crossing Southern Europe to Iranian plateau, forming the Alborz and the Zagros Mountains, to the Himalayas and ranges of Southeast Asia.

The Red Sea Rift is a mid-ocean ridge between two tectonic plates, the African plate and the Arabian plate. It extends from the Dead Sea Transform fault system, and ends at an intersection with the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift, forming the Afar triple junction in the Afar Depression of the Horn of Africa.

The Red Sea Rift was formed by the divergence between the African and Arabian plates. The rift transitioned from a continental rift to an oceanic rift. Magnetic anomalies suggest that the spreading rate on either side of the Red Sea is about 1 cm/year. The African plate has a rotation rate of 0.9270 degrees/Ma (million years), while the Arabian plate has a rotation rate of 1.1616 degrees/Ma.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a divergent or constructive plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. In the North Atlantic, the ridge separates the North American from the Eurasian plate and the African plate, north and south of the Azores triple junction. In the South Atlantic, it separates the African and South American plates. The ridge extends from a junction with the Gakkel Ridge (Mid-Arctic Ridge) northeast of Greenland southward to the Bouvet triple junction in the South Atlantic. Although the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is mostly an underwater feature, portions of it have enough elevation to extend above sea level, for example in Iceland. The ridge has an average spreading rate of about 2.5 centimetres (1 in) per year.

The Hellenic arc or Aegean arc is an arcuate mountain chain of the southern Aegean Sea located on the southern margin of the Aegean Sea plate. Geologically it results from the subduction of the African plate under it along the Hellenic subduction zone. The Hellenic Trench trends parallel to its southern side. The Aegean Sea plate, a microplate, is often considered part of the Eurasian plate from which it is in the process of diverging. The arc itself is mainly marine, the mountaintops appearing as islands in the Ionian Sea, Crete and its environs, or in the Dodecanese group. It encroaches on mainland terrain in the Peloponnesus, on Crete, on Rhodes, and on the southern coast of Anatolia, thus being encompassed by both Greece and Turkey.

The direction of subduction is northward. Locations on the arc or near it on the north side are therefore called "outer" as they are at the outer margin of the plate. Locations further north are "inner." Generally the motion of subduction is from outer to inner. It so happens that, due to back-arc extension, the Hellenic Arc and Trench are moving in the reverse direction, from inner to outer, accounting for the severe arcuate form. There are in essence two layers at the subduction zone, a bottom one moving from outer to inner, and a top one moving from inner to outer.

The Aegean Sea plate (also called the Hellenic plate or Aegean plate) is a small tectonic plate located in the Eastern Mediterranean under Southern Greece and western Turkey. Its southern edge is the Hellenic subduction zone south of Crete, where the African plate is being swept under the Aegean Sea plate. Its northern margin is a divergent boundary with the Eurasian plate.

The seafloor in this region is about 350 m below sea level, while the adjacent Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea are 1300–1500 m deep. For this reason it is considered a high plateau between the seas. Evidence suggests the Aegean plate contains thinned continental crust, rather than oceanic crust. Since its creation the crust has been thinned through various processes, including post-orogenic collapse and crustal extension. This extension is responsible for the formation of the Gulf of Corinth.

The South American plate is a major tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America as well as a sizable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the African plate, with which it forms the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The easterly edge is a divergent boundary with the African plate; the southerly edge is a complex boundary with the Antarctic plate, the Scotia plate, and the Sandwich Plate; the westerly edge is a convergent boundary with the subducting Nazca plate; and the northerly edge is a boundary with the Caribbean plate and the oceanic crust of the North American plate. At the Chile triple junction, near the west coast of the Taitao–Tres Montes Peninsula, an oceanic ridge known as the Chile Rise is actively subducting under the South American plate.