Tectonic movement

The Earth's surface is made up of different pieces called tectonic plates. The movement of these plates can change landscapes.

In this article you can learn about:

• What tectonic plates and fault lines are
• How a fold mountain is formed where tectonic plates meet
• How tectonic movement causes earthquakes
• Wildlife in Scotland's Great Glen

This article is suitable for Landscapes topics for primary school learners.

Join Isla and Connor as they explore features of tectonic movement along the Great Glen Way.

• Our planet, Earth, is made up of different layers. The hard outer layer is called the crust.
• The Earth's crust is made up of large slabs called tectonic plates.
• These plates fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces.
• Tectonic plates move around very slowly and this movement changes the landscape around us.

How many continents are there?

• Land on Earth is made up of different pieces called continents. These large areas of land are surrounded by sea and contain lots of different countries.
• The seven continents are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia.
• All these continents used to be joined together in one supercontinent called Pangaea.

What is Pangaea?

• Over time, the movement of tectonic plates broke Pangaea up into different parts, creating the continents we know today.
• The breaking up of different continents means that some of the same features of landscape, like mountain ranges, can be found on different continents.
• For example, the mountains and hills along the Great Glen Way in Scotland were originally part of the same mountain range as the Appalachian Mountains in Canada.

• Fold mountains are created where two or more of Earth's tectonic plates are pushed together.
• Where the plates meet, rocks and debris are warped and folded into hills, mountains, and entire mountain ranges.
• The movement is so slow that it takes thousands of years for fold mountains to form.
• Examples of fold mountains include the Andes in South America, the Alps in Europe and the Himalayas in Asia.

This slideshow shows examples of fold mountains around the world.

When two tectonic plates move against each other, this can cause an earthquake along the fault line.

In this video, Isla and Connor finish their journey along the Great Glen Way in Inverness, where they find out about earthquakes.

Learn more about some of the wildlife Isla and Connor spotted along the Great Glen Way.

• continents - A large piece of land of the Earth's surface surrounded by sea. In the UK, we are on the continent, Europe.
• Pangaea - A supercontinent made up of all the world's land masses before they were broken up into the different continents we recognise today.
• crust - The outer layer of the Earth. The crust is the solid rock layer upon which we live.
• mantle - The layer beneath the Earth's crust. In the upper parts of the mantle the rock is hard, but lower down the rock is soft and beginning to melt.
• tectonic plates - Large slabs that fit together to make up the Earth's crust.
• fault - Where two or more tectonic plates meet. This could also be called a plate boundary or fault line.
• fold mountain - A mountain that has formed where two or more of Earth's tectonic plates have been pushed together.
• mountain range - A series of hills or mountains that have formed close together.
• earthquake - A sudden movement of the Earth's crust caused when pressure builds up between tectonic plates over long periods of time.
• friction - A force of resistance between two surfaces that are moving across or against each other. Tectonic plates move in different directions over long periods of time and friction causes them to get stuck.