Convection Currents and Plate Movement

This lecture relates the movement of convection currents in Earth's mantle to the movement of Earth's tectonic plates. The upward current in a convection cell cycle is associated with divergent plate boundaries, as heated magma rises and spreads out beneath the lithospheric plates. The downward current is associated with convergent plate boundaries and subduction, as the now cooled rocks become more dense and sink back down towards the mantle/outer core boundary. The following screencast relates convection currents to tectonic movement, and introduces the concepts of ridge push and slab pull.