African Plate

American

noun

Geology.

a major tectonic division of the earth's crust, comprising the African continent as well as adjacent ocean basins (the Canary, Cape Verde, Angola, Cape Agulhas, Somali, Madagascar, and Natal Basins), and bounded on the north by the Eurasian and Arabian Plates, on the east by mid-ocean ridges (the Southwest Indian, Mid-Indian, and Carlsberg Ridges), on the south by the Antarctic Plate, and on the west by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The broader region is crisscrossed by active fault lines created as the African Plate presses northeastward against the Hellenic Plate.

From Science Daily

The Red Sea formed by separation of the Arabian Plate from the African Plate beginning 30 million years ago.

From Science Daily

North Africa sits on the Nubian plate, also called the African plate, which is slowly moving with respect to the Eurasian plate.

From National Geographic

Once a layer of beach sands that had been cemented together by weight, temperature and time into Tuscarora quartz arenite, the 425-million-year-old rocks were turned vertical when the North American continental plate collided with the African plate during the Appalachian orogeny.

From Washington Post

But pent-up stress caused by collisions with the African plate and Eurasian plate result in frequent earthquakes.

From Washington Post

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023