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The Pacific Plate is the largest tectonic plate on Earth. Its boundaries form most of the Pacific "Ring of Fire", the most earthquake- and volcano-prone belt on the planet.

The North American Plate carries North America and part of the Atlantic. Its western edge - including the San Andreas Fault and the Cascadia and Alaska subduction zones - is highly seismically active.

The Eurasian Plate underlies most of Europe and Asia. Major earthquakes occur along its southern boundary with the African, Arabian and Indian plates, from the Mediterranean to the Himalaya.

The African (Nubian) Plate is splitting along the East African Rift. Its northern collision with Eurasia drives earthquakes across the Mediterranean and North Africa.

The Antarctic Plate surrounds the South Pole and is bounded almost entirely by mid-ocean spreading ridges, where moderate earthquakes are common but large ones are rare.

The Australian (Indo-Australian) Plate is moving north into the Eurasian and Pacific plates, fueling intense seismicity through Indonesia, New Guinea and New Zealand.

The South American Plate meets the subducting Nazca Plate along the Andes, producing some of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, including the 1960 M9.5 in Chile.

The Nazca Plate subducts beneath South America at one of the fastest convergence rates on Earth, driving the Andes and frequent great earthquakes off Peru and Chile.

The small Cocos Plate subducts beneath Central America and southern Mexico, the source of frequent strong earthquakes from Mexico to Costa Rica.

The Caribbean Plate is bounded by active strike-slip and subduction zones, producing damaging earthquakes in Haiti, Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean.

The Arabian Plate is rotating away from Africa and colliding with Eurasia, driving earthquakes from the Red Sea rift to the Zagros mountains of Iran.

The Indian Plate collides with Eurasia to build the Himalaya, the source of great earthquakes across Nepal, northern India and Pakistan.

The Philippine Sea Plate is ringed by subduction zones and trenches, making the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan among the most seismically active places on Earth.

The small Juan de Fuca Plate subducts beneath the Pacific Northwest along the Cascadia subduction zone, capable of a great M9 earthquake and tsunami.

The Scotia Plate, between South America and Antarctica, is bounded by active strike-slip faults that generate frequent earthquakes in the South Atlantic.