[geo driver (OP)]

I was trying to explane Continental drift and came into an inbuggerance, do the plates move or is it the land mass that moves and the plates stay put? Or is it both ? []

[Bass]

Land masses are attached to plates, and the plates absolutely move.  So the land masses don't move independently of the plates.  An excellent example of this is the Indian plate running into the Asian plate to form the Himalaya Mountains.
The oceanic plates dive underneath the continental plates at subduction zones due to their relatively higher density and because they are far thinner than the lighter continental material.

[maffsolo]

Land masses are attached to plates, and the plates absolutely move.  So the land masses don't move independently of the plates.  An excellent example of this is the Indian plate running into the Asian plate to form the Himalaya Mountains.
The oceanic plates dive underneath the continental plates at subduction zones due to their relatively higher density and because they are far thinner than the lighter continental material.

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[imatfaal]

That's the Matterhorn.  Don't know what the significance of the picture was but I am pretty sure it isn't Himalayan

[Geezer]

That's the Matterhorn. 

It does have a certain horny look about it.

[maffsolo]

That's the Matterhorn.  Don't know what the significance of the picture was but I am pretty sure it isn't Himalayan

Significance is there are several fine lines in the Earth's surface.

"About 40 million years ago, the Alps were created, when two sections of the Earth's crust crashed into each other, throwing up rock into a chain of buckled, folded mountains."
  
A little off subject relating this base site,  but, "an English mountaineer, Edward Whymper, led the first successful climb to the top of the Matterhorn in 1865."

Only relating to the question, sorry Imatfaal, I rather the Swiss Alps instead, just a preference.

Yes Geezer mother nature also has an artistic sense of hummer

[geo driver (OP)]

ahhyhhhhhhh.... later the embuggerance, do you talk of induction where one plate moves under another does not meen the plates move, like too convayerbelts comming together one under the other,, think like that and the land mass can move and gthe plate can be in the same place, like the super volcanio, hotspot take, yellostone park the hotspot stays in the same place but the land moves

[Bass]

Your conveyor belt is a good analogy for subducting oceanic plates- they are consumed (subduct under) the continents while new material is being created at the mid-oceanic ridges.
But they are still are moving plates, as are the continents (land masses).  The Yellowstone hotspot may be fixed, but the North American Plate is moving slowly to the southwest, making it appear that Yellowstone is moving to the northeast.

[Geezer]

Yellowstone is moving to the northeast.

Can you do anything to make it move a bit faster, please?

[Bass]

Yellowstone is moving to the northeast.

Can you do anything to make it move a bit faster, please?

What do you have against Billings?

[Geezer]

Yellowstone is moving to the northeast.

Can you do anything to make it move a bit faster, please?

What do you have against Billings?

Nothing - I just don't want to get turned into a crispy critter.

[maffsolo]

Yellowstone is moving to the northeast.

Can you do anything to make it move a bit faster, please?

What do you have against Billings?

Nothing - I just don't want to get turned into a crispy critter.

Don't worry you are already hot stuff.
Only the good die young, you still have 2000 years left.

[geo driver (OP)]

ok, im getting embuggeritise, the question i meant was, do the plates move? think of the conveyor belt, the belt moves,yet the thing it is on stays put, so you have a continent it moves but does the plates position change?  i think the answer is yes but cant quite get why, i can understand convection in the mantle, but if one plate moves doesnt all the rest have to budge out the way? and in the same direction as the first plate

[Ophiolite]

, i can understand convection in the mantle, but if one plate moves doesnt all the rest have to budge out the way? and in the same direction as the first plate

No. Subduction takes care of this. One plate will move under the other.

[geo driver (OP)]

so does that mean that there are plates getting smaller, wile others are expanding? or that there all growing in the same direction, so wile the plate is migrating there is an other plate to fill the, "just migrated" spot or...

am i just being an idiot in not understanding this?

[Ophiolite]

so does that mean that there are plates getting smaller, wile others are expanding?

Exactly so. The plate carrying South America, for example, is getting larger as it expands from the mid-ocean ridge in the South Atlantic. On its western side it comes up against a portion of the Nazca (?) plate which is subducting beneath it, the Pacific floor being generated from the East Pacific Rise.