Where am ILOCATED

Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is the 5th-largest of the 52 plates in the PB2002 plate model, covering 48.6 million km² (18.7 million sq mi), or 9.5% of Earth’s surface. Europe and most of Asia, from eastern Iceland and the Atlantic coast to Siberia and the Pacific.

Eurasian Plate on the globe, with its boundaries coloured by typeEurasian PlateNorth American PlateAmur PlateIndian PlateYangtze PlateArabian PlateAnatolian PlateOkhotsk Plate
Eurasian Plate Convergent Divergent Transform
Area
48.6 million km² (18.7 million sq mi)
Share of Earth’s surface
9.5%
Speed across the plate
1.7 to 2.5 cm a year (0.7 to 1.0 in)
Direction at its center
Toward the east
Length of its edges
41,570 km (25,830 mi)
Neighboring plates
11
Edges by type
31% convergent · 43% divergent · 26% transform
Volcanoes on it
56 active in the past ~12,000 years
What plate am I on?All tectonic plates

What happens at its edges

Along its southern edge it is squeezed by plates moving north. Africa and Arabia push into it from the Mediterranean to Iran, raising the Alps and the Zagros, and India drives into it to raise the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau. In this model the widest of these collision belts are mapped as deforming zones rather than sharp lines.

In the west it moves away from North America and Africa along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The model splits several blocks off its eastern and southern margins as separate plates, including the Amur, Yangtze, Sunda, Okhotsk and Anatolian plates, which many simpler maps leave inside Eurasia.

How fast it moves, and which way

At its center (59.1°N, 58.3°E) the Eurasian Plate moves about 2.4 cm (0.9 in) a year toward the east. Because a plate turns around a pole rather than sliding in a straight line, the speed changes across it: from 1.7 cm (0.7 in) a year to 2.5 cm (1.0 in) a year, with an area-weighted average of 2.3 cm a year. That average makes it the 37th fastest of the 52 plates.

These figures are measured against the average motion of all the plates together (the “no-net-rotation” frame), which is how plate speeds are usually quoted. Measured against the North American Plate instead, the Eurasian Plate moves about 1.4 cm (0.5 in) a year toward the southeast at its center.

In the model it rotates about a pole at 49.3°N, 113.3°W at 0.227° per million years. The speeds are averages over years to millions of years of measurement; earthquakes move the ground near a boundary in sudden steps instead.

Neighboring plates and boundaries

Its edges run for 41,570 km (25,830 mi): 31% convergent, where plates move together; 43% divergent, where they move apart; and 26% transform, where they slide past each other. It sinks beneath the African Plate at subduction zones. The African Plate sinks beneath it.

NeighborShared edgeBoundary typesRelative speed
North American Plate10,770 km (6,690 mi)Divergent 81% · Transform 19%1.5 cm a yearup to 2.3 cm
Amur Plate6,590 km (4,090 mi)Divergent 61% · Transform 29% · Convergent 10%1.0 cm a yearup to 1.0 cm
Indian Plate6,040 km (3,750 mi)Convergent 72% · Transform 26%4.7 cm a yearup to 5.4 cm
African Plate5,540 km (3,440 mi)Convergent 60% · Transform 26% · Divergent 14%0.6 cm a yearup to 0.9 cm
Yangtze Plate3,790 km (2,360 mi)Divergent 65% · Transform 23% · Convergent 12%1.4 cm a yearup to 1.7 cm
Arabian Plate3,330 km (2,070 mi)Convergent 87% · Transform 13%3.5 cm a yearup to 4.4 cm
Sunda Plate2,030 km (1,260 mi)Convergent 56% · Transform 29% · Divergent 15%2.6 cm a yearup to 2.7 cm
Anatolian Plate1,400 km (870 mi)Transform 90% · Divergent 10%2.4 cm a yearup to 2.6 cm
Okhotsk Plate1,400 km (870 mi)Divergent 82% · Transform 18%0.4 cm a yearup to 0.5 cm
Aegean Sea Plate620 km (380 mi)Divergent 53% · Transform 42% · Convergent 6%3.0 cm a yearup to 3.0 cm
Burma Plate80 km (50 mi)Convergent 100%5.0 cm a yearup to 5.1 cm

Relative speed is how fast the two plates move against each other along their shared edge, averaged over its length.

Countries and territories on the Eurasian Plate

51 lie entirely on it; the other 24 are split between plates. The share is the part of each country’s land on this plate.

Volcanoes on the Eurasian Plate

The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program lists 56 volcanoes on this plate that have been active in roughly the past 12,000 years. The most recent eruptions on record:

Where the edges are blurred

Parts of this plate lie in the Alps, Laptev Sea and Persia-Tibet-Burma zones, which the model marks as broad belts of deformation rather than sharp plate edges. There the motion between plates is spread over many faults, and a single boundary line is a simplification.

Sources

Outline, area, boundary types and motion: Bird, P. (2003), An updated digital model of plate boundaries, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 4(3), 1027, doi:10.1029/2001GC000252. Released by its author into the public domain (CC0 1.0). Areas are the model’s published figures; speeds, directions, boundary lengths and countries are calculated from its outlines, boundary steps and rotation poles.

Volcanoes: Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution, Volcanoes of the World (v. 5.4.0). Country outlines: Natural Earth.