Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's outer shell is divided into several plates

that glide over the mantle, the rocky inner layer above the core. The plates act like a hard
and rigid shell compared to Earth's mantle. This strong outer layer is called the lithosphere,
which is 100 km (60 miles) thick. The lithosphere includes the crust and outer part of the
mantle. Below the lithosphere is the asthenosphere, which is malleable or partially
malleable, allowing the lithosphere to move around. How it moves around is an evolving
idea.
Developed from the 1950s through the 1970s, plate tectonics is the modern
version of continental drift, a theory first proposed by scientist Alfred Wegener in 1912.
Wegener didn't have an explanation for how continents could move around the planet, but
researchers do now. Plate tectonics is the unifying theory of geology, said Nicholas van der
Elst, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in
Palisades, New York.
"Before plate tectonics, people had to come up with explanations of the
geologic features in their region that were unique to that particular region," Van der Elst
said. "Plate tectonics unified all these descriptions and said that you should be able to
describe all geologic features as though driven by the relative motion of these tectonic
plates."