what are tectonic plates made of and how hot are they?
In: Physics
Tectonic plates are pieces of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle, and as such, they’re made of largely the same types of rocks and minerals found on the surface; largely rocks and minerals like feldspars and quartz, as well as various other metals and oxides. The temperature depends on the depth, and different plates have different depths, raging from a few kilometers to over 200 kilometers. Temperatures increase with depth, rising to about 1300°C at the point where the plates give way to the mantle, although it’s a gradual transition area and there isn’t a hard boundary.
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