The South American Plate is a continental tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America and also a sizeable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
The easterly side is a divergent boundary with the African Plate forming the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The southerly side is a complex boundary with the Antarctic Plate and the Scotia Plate. The westerly side is a convergent boundary with the subducting Nazca Plate. The northerly side is a boundary with the Caribbean Plate and the oceanic crust of the North American Plate. At the Chile Triple Junction in Taitato-Tres Montes Peninsula, an oceanic ridge — the Chile Rise — is subducting under the South American plate.
The South American Plate is in motion, moving westward away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The eastward-moving and more dense Nazca Plate is subducting under the western edge of the South American Plate along the Pacific coast of the continent at a rate of 77 mm per year. This collision of plates is responsible for lifting the massive Andes Mountains and causing the volcanoes which are strewn throughout them.
Famous quotes containing the words south american, south, american and/or plate:
“Indeed, I believe that in the future, when we shall have seized again, as we will seize if we are true to ourselves, our own fair part of commerce upon the sea, and when we shall have again our appropriate share of South American trade, that these railroads from St. Louis, touching deep harbors on the gulf, and communicating there with lines of steamships, shall touch the ports of South America and bring their tribute to you.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“The Great South Beach of Long Island,... though wild and desolate, as it wants the bold bank,... possesses but half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the imagination contented with its southern aspect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.”
—Martha Graham (1894–1991)
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—Jan Clausen (b. 1943)