•  A team of researchers from Rice University in Texas have discovered a new tectonic plat Malpelo e off the coast of Ecuador. There were 56 plates; now, there are 57.

About Malpelo:

• Scientists discovered the microplate — which they’ve dubbed “Malpelo” — while analyzing the movements of what they believed to be the convergence of a trio of plates.
• Researchers were studying the coming together of a major tectonic plate and two smaller plates.
• Evidence for the Malpelo plate came with the researchers’ identification of a diffuse plate boundary that runs from the Panama Transform Fault eastward to where the diffuse plate boundary intersects a deep oceanic trench just offshore of Ecuador and Colombia.
• A diffuse boundary is best described as a series of many small, hard-to-spot faults rather than a ridge or transform fault that sharply defines the boundary of two plates. Because earthquakes along diffuse boundaries tend to be small and less frequent than along transform faults, there was little information in the seismic record to indicate this one's presence.

About Plates:

• The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes the crust and uppermost part of the mantle.) Churning currents in the molten rocks below propel them along like a jumble of conveyor belts in disrepair. Most geologic activity stems from the interplay where the plates meet or divide.
• The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates move into one another; divergent, where plates move apart; and transform, where plates move sideways in relation to each other.
• They move at a rate of one to two inches (three to five centimeters) per year.