Talk:African Plate

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is it correct that the northen boundary runs through the Mediterranean as suggested by the image? I was under the impression that the Alps constitute the boundary of African and Eurasian plates. 07:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

A late answer - yes, the map is correct. Italy used to be a separate "platelet" that was more or less pushed ahead of Africa to collide with Eurasia, and became attached to it. Italy (and the Alps) would now be considered to be part of the Eurasia Plate. Geologyguy 21:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

This article should be moved to African Plate. Plate is formal and is capitalized. --129.173.105.28 18:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Earthquake but no fault

I found this very strange. It was an earthquake magnitude 7.5 in Mosambique. The weird thing is I cannot see any fault line in that particular area.

The USGS says the quake happened om a fault, the socalled East African Rift System And it is the boundary of the African plate in the west, and the Somalia plate in the east. It is a spreading zone, a rift/ridge.

When I look at the maps of the area on the USGS website http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2006/eq_060222_jlca/neic_jlca_l.html There are no fault lines, not any ridges either, as would be logical. Is it because it might be a subplate earthquake? I would be thankfull for answersJordskjelv 18:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the map of the East African Rift system (lower of two images in this African Plate article) you will see dashed lines - they represent broad locations of the major faults, but they are fault ZONES, so there are indeed plenty of faults in Mozambique, although it is not a very seismically active area. Geologyguy 21:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

How deep was the earthquake? 7.5 suggests it may well have been relatively deep in the crust and may be on a fault that does not intersect the surface, but nevertheless is part of the E Af system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.27.213.161 (talk) 23:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

North American boundary

I was always told that the African Plate extended all the way under the Atlantic, and bordered the North American plate somewhere under the eastern seaboard. This was a cause of concern, as we lived about an hour from Seabrook Nuclear Power plant, which was supposedly built along the African/North American fault line, which was over 100 years overdue for a major quake. (Apparently many nuclear plants are built along fault lines, as they are often a source of running water needed for cooling.) However, according to this map, the fault line is nowhere near North America, and instead seems to be way out in the middle of the Atlantic. I don't see any fault lines under the east coast of North America to speak of. Were the people who told me this just plain wrong? Or is it more complicated? --Lurlock 20:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The African Plate only extends as far as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But before there was an Atlantic Ocean, what is now Africa was indeed very close to the eastern seabord of what is now North America. The separation of the two began during the Triassic, more than 200 million years ago - that is when the faults were most active. There are thousands of faults in the Appalachians, but most of them are inactive or rarely active. The only significant seismic activity on the eastern seaboard is around Charleston, SC, and upstate New York. That does not mean there may not be quakes in other areas, just that they are unlikely and any that do occur will probably be small. Geologyguy 21:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Azores

Not all of the Azores could be included in the African Plate (Corvo & Flores are part of the North American Plate) but could we say that the islands of São Miguel & Santa Maria are part of the African Plate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.197.178.2 (talk) 17:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that the Azores are fundamentally on the indistinct border between the African plate and the southwesternmost part of the Eurasian plate. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 17:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Milnerton Fault line

Why is the Milnerton fault line not mentioned anywhere in the African plate discussions? Or in maps, the other fault lines are "mapped out", but no reference ver made to the Milnerton fault line in the Western Cape, South Africa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.208.40.67 (talk) 16:55, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Nubian Plate Redirect

Links to the Nubian plate redirect here, but links to the Somali Plate have their own article. Perhaps this should be reorganized? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.54.115.185 (talk) 21:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the circular links - a short Nubian Plate article is probably the answer. Mikenorton (talk) 22:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Infobox problem - Movement (direction) and Speed

The tectonic plate infobox used in this article contains coding for its Movement (direction) and Speed fields that currently always displays a footnote stating that these values are relative to the African Plate. This is nonsensical for the African Plate itself. Does anyone know if it is possible to suppress the "Relative to the African Plate" footnote of this infobox template when used by this African Plate article? If yes, then how? GeoWriter (talk) 09:32, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Most infobox parameters don't show up if they're empty, so I removed "None" from the move_direction and move_speed parameters, and voilà! It worked. — Gorthian (talk) 19:50, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

That's a tip worth remembering, and thanks for making the change. GeoWriter (talk) 11:28, 20 August 2016 (UTC)