GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Magma is the molten rock below the crust, in the mantle. Tremendous heat and pressure within the earth cause the hot magma to flow in convection currents. These currents cause the movement of the tectonic plates that make up the earth’s crust.

Detailed explanation-2: -The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.

Detailed explanation-3: -While the plates are floating, the convection currents within the mantle are constantly moving in a cycle. This occurs because the hot liquid rock within the mantle rises from deep within the Earth to the top of the mantle. As liquid rock cools, it goes downward.

Detailed explanation-4: -The common, simplified explanation for why tectonic plates are moving is that they’re carried along on currents in the upper mantle, the slowly flowing layer of rock just below the Earth’s crust. Converging currents drive plates into each other. Diverging currents pull them apart. This is mostly true.

Detailed explanation-5: -The plates move on a hot flowing mantle layer called the asthenosphere, which is several hundred kilometers thick. Heat within the asthenosphere creates convection currents (similar to the currents that can be seen in the lava lamp).