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 tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America and also a sizeable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the African Plate creating 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. `` 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. '' 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 ( 3.0 in ) per year. This collision of plates is responsible for lifting the massive Andes Mountains and causing the volcanoes which are strewn throughout them. See also Fifteen - Twenty Fracture Zone References Jump up ^ http://geology.about.com/library/bl/blplate_size_table.htm 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. 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 Conway Reef Easter Explorer Futuna Galapagos Gonâve Gorda Greenland Halmahera Iberian Indian Iranian Juan Fernández Kerguelen Kermadec Madagascar 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 of tectonic plates Tectonics of South America Tectonic plates Altiplano ? Caribbean Falkland Juan Fernández North Andes North Galápagos Scotia South American Panama Faults and rift zones Atacama Fault Liquiñe - Ofqui Fault Cochabamba Fault Gastre Fault Magallanes - Fagnano Fault Pichilemu Fault San Ramón Fault 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 Bucaramanga - Santa Marta Fault Eastern Frontal Fault System Afiladores Algeciras Garzón - Pitalito Guaicáramo Guayuriba Mocoa San Pedro - Cumaral Servitá - Santa María Sibundoy Suazá Yopal Romeral Fault System Armenia Buesaco - Aranda Córdoba - Navarco Montenegro Paraíso Piendamó Rosas - Julumito Other faults Abriaquí Argelia Bagre Norte Bahía Solano Bituima - La Salina Boconó Bogotá Cañasgordas Caño Tomás Cauca Chitagá - Pamplona Cimitarra Colombia Cucuaná Cuisa Dagua - Calima El Tambor Espiritú Santo Garrapatas Guáitara Honda Ibagué Irlanda La Dina La Macarena La Plata Meta Montería Morronegro - Las Mercedes Mulato - Getudo Murindó Murrí Mutatá Naya - Micay Oca Otú Norte Palestina Piedrancha Remolino - El Charco Santa Rita Suárez Tarra Toro Tucurá Unguía Uramita 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=825461926 '' 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 Natural history of South America Geology of the Atlantic Ocean 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 Edit links This page was last edited on 13 February 2018, at 15 : 12. 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Question: the west coast of south america is what plate boundary
Answer: a convergent boundary with the subducting Nazca Plate