NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Social Science Chapter 2 Fig. 2.3, world map showing major plates and their direction of movement — LET'S MAP
Book page 16 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Pick any two plates from the map above and complete the table given below. (Name of the plate | Continents | Ocean)
Fig. 2.3, page 16 — the world's major plates and the direction in which each one is moving. The plate names sit where the book prints them, and the arrows show the direction of movement of each plate as the book's arrows do; the dashed red lines mark the plate boundaries, added so that you can see where one plate ends and the next begins.
Answer
Read the plate outlines and the arrows in Fig. 2.3 first, then fill the table. Any two plates are acceptable — here are two worked examples, with the rest of the major plates given so you can check whichever pair you chose.
Name of the plate
Continents
Ocean
Indo-Australian plate
Asia (the Indian subcontinent) and Australia
Indian Ocean
South American plate
South America
Atlantic Ocean (its western half)
The other major plates in Fig. 2.3, for reference:
Name of the plate
Continents
Ocean
North American plate
North America, Greenland
Atlantic Ocean (western half), part of the Arctic Ocean
Eurasian plate
Europe and most of Asia
Atlantic Ocean (eastern half), Arctic Ocean
African plate
Africa
Atlantic Ocean (eastern half) and the western Indian Ocean
Pacific plate
Almost none — a small strip of North America along the Californian coast
Pacific Ocean
Antarctic plate
Antarctica
Southern Ocean, and the southern edges of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans
What the two rows tell you: the Indo-Australian and South American plates both carry land and sea floor, so they are mixed plates in the chapter's three-fold classification. The Pacific plate is the clearest oceanic plate — it is almost entirely ocean floor. That is why the Pacific rim, where this heavy oceanic plate meets lighter continental plates, is ringed by volcanoes and earthquakes.
Check it yourself on the map: read the arrows for the plate you picked. Over India the arrows on the Indo-Australian plate point north and north-east, straight into the Eurasian plate — which is precisely where the Himalaya stands. On either side of the mid-Atlantic the arrows point away from each other, one set west and one set east. Around Antarctica they point outwards in every direction.