South American Plate - Wikipedia South American Plate This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( February 2013 ) South American Plate Type Major Approximate area 43,600,000 km ( 16,800,000 sq mi ) Movement West Speed 27 -- 34 mm ( 1.1 -- 1.3 in ) / year Features South America, Atlantic Ocean Relative to the African Plate The South American Plate is a major tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America as well as a sizable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the African Plate, with which it forms the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The easterly edge is a divergent boundary with the African Plate ; the southerly edge is a complex boundary with the Antarctic Plate, the Scotia Plate, and the Sandwich Plate ; the westerly edge is a convergent boundary with the subducting Nazca Plate ; and the northerly edge is a boundary with the Caribbean Plate and the oceanic crust of the North American Plate. At the Chile Triple Junction, near the west coast of the Taitao -- Tres Montes Peninsula, an oceanic ridge known as the Chile Rise is actively subducting under the South American Plate. Geological research suggests that the South American Plate is moving westward away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge : `` Parts of the plate boundaries consisting of alternations of relatively short transform fault and spreading ridge segments are represented by a boundary following the general trend. '' As a result, the eastward - moving and more dense Nazca Plate is subducting under the western edge of the South American Plate, along the continent 's Pacific coast, at a rate of 77 mm ( 3.0 in ) per year. The collision of these two plates is responsible for lifting the massive Andes Mountains and for creating the numerous volcanoes which are strewn throughout them. See also Fifteen - Twenty Fracture Zone References Jump up ^ `` Here are the Sizes of Tectonic or Lithospheric Plates ''. about.com. Retrieved 6 April 2018. Jump up ^ Meijer, P.T. ; Wortel, M.J.R. ( July 30, 1992 ). `` The Dynamics of Motion of the South American Plate ''. Journal of Geophysical Research. 97 : 11915. Bibcode : 1992JGR... 9711915M. doi : 10.1029 / 91jb01123. Jump up ^ Pisco, Peru, Earthquake of August 15, 2007 : Lifeline Performance. Reston, VA : ASCE, Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering. ISBN 9780784410615. Archived from the original on November 14, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Convergent Plate Boundaries - Oceanic / Continental : The Andes ''. The Geological Society. Retrieved 2 July 2018. Jump up ^ Penvenne, Laura Jean ( 27 January 1996 ). `` South America buckles under the pressure ''. New Scientist. Retrieved 2 July 2018. Tectonic plates Major African Indo - Australian Plate Antarctic Eurasian North American Pacific South American Minor Amurian Arabian Caribbean Caroline Cocos Juan de Fuca Nazca Okhotsk Philippine Scotia Somali Yangtze Other Adriatic Aegean Sea Anatolian Australian Balmoral Reef Banda Sea Bird 's Head Burma Capricorn Coiba Conway Reef Easter Explorer Futuna Galapagos Gonâve Gorda Greenland Halmahera Iberian Indian Iranian Juan Fernández Kerguelen Kermadec Madagascar Malpelo Manus Maoke Mariana Molucca Sea New Hebrides Niuafo'ou North Andes North Bismarck North Galapagos Nubian Okinawa Panama Pelso Philippine Mobile Belt Rivera Sangihe Seychelles Shetland Solomon Sea South Bismarck South Sandwich Sunda Timor Tisza Tonga Woodlark Historical Baltic Bellingshausen Charcot Cimmeria Farallon Insular Intermontane Izanagi Kula Lhasa Malvinas Moa Phoenix List Category Earth science Commons Tectonics of South America Tectonic plates Altiplano ? Caribbean Coiba Falkland Juan Fernández Malpelo North Andes North Galápagos Scotia South American Panama Faults and rift zones Atacama Boconó Bucaramanga - Santa Marta Cochabamba Eastern Frontal Gastre Liquiñe - Ofqui Magallanes - Fagnano Oca - Ancón Pichilemu Romeral San Ramón Subduction Peru -- Chile Trench Chile Triple Junction Subducted structures Nazca Plate Antarctic Plate Carnegie Ridge Nazca Ridge Juan Fernández Ridge Chile Rise Subduction products Andean orogeny Andean Volcanic Belt Tectonism in Colombia Tectonic plates Caribbean Plate Coiba Plate Malpelo Plate North Andes Plate Panama Plate South American Plate Regional fault systems Bituima - La Salina Bucaramanga - Santa Marta Cauca Cuisa Eastern Frontal Afiladores Algeciras Garzón - Pitalito Guaicáramo Guayuriba Mocoa San Pedro - Cumaral Servitá - Santa María Sibundoy Suazá Yopal Espiritú Santo Garrapatas Meta Oca Romeral Armenia Buesaco - Aranda Córdoba - Navarco Montenegro Paraíso Piendamó Rosas - Julumito Uramita Other faults Abriaquí Argelia Bagre Norte Bahía Solano Boconó Bogotá Cañasgordas Caño Tomás Chitagá - Pamplona Cimitarra Cucuana Dagua - Calima El Tambor Guáitara Honda Ibagué Irlanda La Dina La Macarena La Plata Montería Morronegro - Las Mercedes Mulato - Getudo Murindó Murrí Mutatá Naya - Micay Otú Norte Palestina Piedrancha Remolino - El Charco Santa Rita Suárez Tarra Toro Tucurá Unguía Urrao Usme Vianí Major earthquakes 1646 1743 1785 1827 1834 1868 1875 1906 1917 1936 1958 1962 1967 1970 ( 1 ) 1970 ( 2 ) 1979 ( 1 ) 1979 ( 2 ) 1991 1995 ( 1 ) 1995 ( 2 ) 1999 2007 2008 2012 2013 ( 1 ) 2013 ( 2 ) 2015 2016 ( 1 ) 2016 ( 2 ) Sources Paris, Gabriel ; Michael N. Machette ; Richard L. Dart, and Kathleen M. Haller. 2000. Map and Database of Quaternary Faults and Folds in Colombia and its Offshore Regions, 1 - 66. USGS. Accessed 2017 - 06 - 20. Various, Authors. 2014. Enciclopedia de desastres naturales históricos de Colombia, 1 - 21. Universidad del Quindío. Accessed 2017 - 06 - 20. Category Images This tectonics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=South_American_Plate&oldid=848473058 '' Categories : Tectonic plates Geology of Argentina Geology of Bolivia Geology of Brazil Geology of Chile Geology of Colombia Geology of Ecuador Geology of Peru Geology of Uruguay Geology of Venezuela Geology of the Atlantic Ocean Natural history of South America Tectonics stubs Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from February 2013 All articles needing additional references All stub articles Talk About Wikipedia Azərbaycanca Беларуская Boarisch Català Čeština Deutsch Eesti Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Galego 한국어 हिन्दी Hrvatski Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Kiswahili Кыргызча Lietuvių Magyar Bahasa Melayu Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk Occitan Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча Polski Português Русский Slovenčina Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 34 more Edit links This page was last edited on 2 July 2018, at 03 : 43 ( UTC ). 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Question: where is the plate boundary located that separates the south american and african plates
Answer: the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge