What are Earth's "jigsaw puzzles"?

The lithosphere on the Earth's surface is made up of a myriad of plates.

The term "plate" was coined by J.T. Wilson, a famous Canadian scholar, as an important term in Earth science. Wilson was not strictly trained in geology or geophysics, but was a physicist. However, this "amateur" (please note that the founder of the continental drift theory, Wegener is not from geology or geophysics, but a meteorologist) in the observation and study of the earth's crust and its movement, but has its own unique characteristics. His study of transform faults in the oceans revealed the existence of a network of interconnected active belts stretching tens of thousands of kilometers across the Earth's surface. Its existence divides the lithosphere of the Earth's surface into a number of rigid crustal blocks of varying sizes. Wilson visualized these rigid plates as the "Earth cover".

Wilson noted that because the Earth's surface is curved, the caps, or plates, are curved and surprisingly large. Individual Earth cover plates often cover tens of thousands to millions of square kilometers or more. But the thickness of the plate is very small, although also in the tens of kilometers to 200 kilometers between, but relative to the lateral size of the plate and 6370 kilometers of the radius of the Earth, but still a very thin layer, so called "plate" is very image, but also very appropriate.

The development of "plate" into so-called "plate tectonics" refers to the tectonics formed when the lithospheric plates on the Earth's surface break up into a number of blocks that interact with and push against each other.

We live on the surface of the Earth, like a plate of different sizes and shapes set up by a huge, colorful spherical "jigsaw puzzle"!