km and its net movement is northward. Future Tectonics. The Arabian plate separated from Africa approximately 25 million years ago, resulting in the closure of the subducting Tethys sea in the northeast (Johnson and Stern, 2010). It encompasses the continents of Africa and Southern Asia, along with its main water bodies of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. The East African Rift is a continental divergent boundary between the Nubian plate and the Somalian plate (see Fig. This animation shows the plate tectonic evolution of the Earth from the time of Pangea, 240 million years ago, to the formation of Pangea Proxima, 250 million years in the future. The Eurasian tectonic plate is one of the largest on Earth, spanning all of Asia and Europe. It is located in the Middle East Region of Asia; it covers approximately 6 million sq. Though complex, the active tectonics along the borders of the plate can be roughly summarized by divergent boundaries to the west/northwest, and convergent boundaries to the east/southeast. History. 1), which includes the smaller Madagascar plate and the Seychelles Plateau.The rift extends from the Afar Triangle—a triple junction of the Nubian, Somalian, and Arabian plates—to the Antarctic plate, however the rift has not been fully mapped in southern Africa. Red Sea rifting began in the Eocene, but the separation of Africa and Arabia occurred approximately in the Oligocene, and since then the Arabian Plate has been slowly moving toward the Eurasian Plate. The Arabian plate is located in the Middle East of Asia and is home to the countries of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Iraq (Konert et al., 2001). The Arabian Plate is the one that forms boundaries with 3 major plates – the Eurasian Plate, African Plate and Indian Plate.

The Arabian Plate was part of the African Plate during much of the Phanerozoic Eon (Paleozoic–Cenozoic), until the Oligocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era. The Eurasian Plate is a plate tectonic boundary consisting most of Europe, Russia and China.. It’s the third largest, being slightly smaller than the Pacific Plate and North American Plate.. Because Earth’s tectonic plate boundaries often consist of continent and ocean crust, the Eurasian Plate contains parts of the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean.. All plate tectonics move deceptively slow. The general motion of the Eurasian plate is west/southwest.