The lithosphere is cool, rigid, and capable of supporting elastic stress, while the asthenosphere is hotter, partially molten, and capable of plastic flow. Early ideas proposed continents moving through oceanic crust, but later evidence showed that the lithosphere itself moves as discrete units.
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Convergent boundaries happen where plates collide, leading to subduction or continental collision. Convergent boundaries form deep-sea trenches, volcanic arcs, and mountain belts.
The lithosphere, roughly 100 kilometers thick, sits above the more ductile asthenosphere. These lines of evidence converged into a unified model where rigid plates interact at boundaries, explaining deformation, volcanism, and seismicity in a single coherent framework.
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GPS measurements and earthquake focal mechanisms help quantify present-day plate motions. This mechanical boundary layer responds to stress as a single unit, allowing scientists to map and track each plate as a coherent entity through space and time.
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