Can you name the Earth's tectonic plates (pictured below)?

created by davidr

Enter a plate in the box below
Correctly named plates will show up below
While there are many more minor plates, you only have to name the ones pictured.

You have 5 minutes to guess after you click the button below.

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Tectonic plates Quiz

Rating:	Report a mistake
Created by: davidr -
Published: January 28th, 2009
Category: Geography
Plays: 40,303

Tags: Picture Quizzes, earth, tectonic, plate

Loading friend results....

	DLJessup:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 05:17 GMT	5 points
	Argh! There were four that I had no idea, but I blew two through stupidity. First, for some reason, I kept trying to put "San" in front of the name of the plate in the vicinity of Washington/British Columbia. Second, I badly misspelled the name of the plate that covers Panama.

	ebg:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 05:19 GMT	6 points
	Great quiz!

	starsaphire:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 07:44 GMT	8 points
	7/15... as a native Californian I should have done a lot better! ;)

	delToro87:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 10:01 GMT	6 points
	10/15 - most of them fairly logical, remembered Nazca, forgot Juan de Fuca which I was annoyed about, I always thought that was funny at school!

	rahv:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 11:03 GMT	6 points
	great quiz. had no idea about the names so i only got the 11 with a fairly obvious name.

Comment below threshold: show it

	shel99:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 12:48 GMT	6 points
	14/15...should have gotten the last one too (missed the one at the south tip of S. America), I just finished teaching the plate tectonics unit to my eighth graders...:-/

	R:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 13:56 GMT	10 points
	Nice quiz! One can never know when this information will prove crucial.

	chambers:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 14:03 GMT	15 points
	pretty easy to guess tbh. glad i got the juan de fuca. my geography teacher used to pronounce it in a certain memorable way

	batmann:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 19:23 GMT	-4 points
	I got 10 and I don't know crap about this stuff. They were all guesses :D

	rahv:	Jan 28th, 2009 at 22:30 GMT	9 points
	@jack: you just made my day ... i'll probably never forget "juan de fuca" ever again :)

	klogg:	Jan 30th, 2009 at 03:51 GMT	9 points
	@ R: Totally agree. When I'm on sporcle, I sometimes pretend like the world will explode or the President is counting on me to, say, name the top Beatles hits. (Not being sarcastic here, I actually think that) Ah, only 7/15..guessed based on the continents haha

Comment below threshold: show it

	Bray:	Jan 30th, 2009 at 20:57 GMT	4 points
	Got the 11 obvious ones (but Philippine isn't obvious, it was an educated guess based on the fact that it was near the Philippines :P)

	Tapestry:	Feb 2nd, 2009 at 11:17 GMT	7 points
	I didn't know the plates had names, so I tried dessert, dinner and supper but nothing worked :-P

	davidr:	Feb 2nd, 2009 at 14:22 GMT	1 point
	@Tapestry: Perhaps we should accept `desert plate' as an alternative for the Arabian plate? ;-)

	Catherine_F:	Feb 3rd, 2009 at 21:30 GMT	5 points
	Love klogg's comment. I will be doing the same from now on :)

	Patteroast:	Feb 27th, 2009 at 14:45 GMT	8 points
	I think there should be some of the other smaller plates as bonus answers, but then again I'm a geology major. :P

	TheArbiter:	Apr 20th, 2009 at 15:24 GMT	4 points
	Poor Iceland. :(

	tazzadar:	Apr 26th, 2009 at 22:57 GMT	-1 points
	why 'Poor Ireland'? It can only get bigger, look at the arrows! :)

	GeoExpert:	May 20th, 2009 at 21:12 GMT	2 points
	@tazzadar: TheAbriter was refering to Iceland, not Ireland. Iceland is slplit in two.

	GeoExpert:	May 20th, 2009 at 21:14 GMT	-1 points
	Nice quiz but I think this should have gone under science not geography

	davidr:	Jun 12th, 2009 at 12:55 GMT	4 points
	@GeoExpert: I think `Ireland' in tazzadar's comment was a typo. Iceland is not being split in two because new land is continuously formed as the plate boundary spreads. As tazzadar says, the country is gradually getting bigger — by about an inch a year.

	Freestone92:	Jul 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 GMT	3 points
	15/15 but then again if i didnt my geography teacher would have killed me lol

	robert23:	Jul 3rd, 2009 at 20:43 GMT	3 points
	i personally think this is way too easy... which might be good

	Arbutus:	Sep 4th, 2009 at 02:13 GMT	2 points
	That was really fun! Missed Scotia, though.

	Qazza2k9:	Sep 25th, 2009 at 17:21 GMT	2 points
	Scotia??? WTF!!!!!!

	browneyednerd:	Sep 28th, 2009 at 00:09 GMT	1 point
	Thank goodness I remembered Cocos at the last minute.

	tazzadar:	Oct 15th, 2009 at 13:20 GMT	3 points
	Iceland, Ireland.. one letter difference. My mistake.

	phoeeeebe:	Nov 10th, 2009 at 20:12 GMT	1 point
	8/15, forgot australian, i tried australasian and oceanian...but not australian.

	Jd22:	Dec 15th, 2009 at 21:27 GMT	1 point
	I don't know how I missed Juan de Fuca, I live right beside it. I did remember typing it but I guess I misspelled. :( I thought the two plates around Mexico were named after the mountain ranges, Sierra Madre Occidental and Sierra Madre Oriental. Good quiz.

	whim:	Apr 4th, 2010 at 14:40 GMT	1 point
	its indo-australian in my geography text book not indian and australian...i need to get back to revision

	thebantams1903:	May 13th, 2010 at 16:46 GMT	1 point
	i was confused for a moment when i first looked at the map, because coming from England we only really have maps with the Atlantic Ocean in the centre, just had to switch my thinking around.

	kpdono:	May 16th, 2010 at 18:42 GMT	0 points
	It is wrong. It is the Indian-Australian Plate, not two separate ones.

	magic1:	Jul 27th, 2010 at 14:18 GMT	1 point
	I kept trying 'Aztec', but I guess I was thinking of Nazca

	samcash13593:	Dec 18th, 2010 at 14:43 GMT	1 point
	ah scotia, i finally got it but i tried everything else first, falkland, south sanwich, argetine. then i remembered seeing a map marking the scotia basin there and i gave it a shot. other than that it was quite easy. although i thought india and australia were on the same plate. i was definitely taught about the indoaustralian plate

	Reevs:	Jan 24th, 2011 at 21:59 GMT	1 point
	I learned these just last year. How did I forget the Scotia Plate. 14/15

	megascarp:	Feb 3rd, 2011 at 14:20 GMT	1 point
	loved it. nice one davidr.

	FritztheSpritz:	Feb 15th, 2011 at 22:00 GMT	1 point
	I tried Royal Doulton, Limoges and Wedgewood. No luck!

	Spaceman5:	Mar 2nd, 2011 at 02:29 GMT	2 points
	This game should be classified in science instead of geography because this is part of earth science.