Where the Nazca Plate lies
The Nazca Plate is mainly oceanic lithosphere west of South America. Its name does not describe a country or the entire southeastern Pacific Ocean.
BOUNDARIES
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Plate colours identify regions, not risk.
Subduction beneath South America
Its eastern margin descends beneath South America at the Peru-Chile trench system. Earthquakes deeper below the continent help trace the slab beyond its surface entry.
Its oceanic neighbours
Spreading boundaries connect it with the Pacific, Cocos and Antarctic regions. Smaller plate regions occur around some ridge junctions in more detailed models.
Sources and map method
Plate outlines use Peter Bird's PB2002 model, distributed by Nordpil under the Open Data Commons Attribution licence. Coastlines and country outlines are Natural Earth public-domain data. Boundary detail is limited by the source model.
- USGS: South America and the Nazca Plate region
- USGS: This Dynamic Planet
- Map dataset sources and licences
- PB2002 geometry and licence
- Natural Earth terms
Country lookup compares simplified land outlines with the plate model. Boundaries and historical coastlines are modelled features. This atlas explains geography; it does not predict earthquakes or provide site-specific hazard estimates.