How do tectonic plates affect the sea?

Tectonic plates generally do not affect the sea, as they are flat with varying topography, they form the sea bottom (eg: bottom of an aquarium with a lot of pebbles and other decorative stuff on it). read more

Tectonic plates only affect the size of the sea. The movement of plates at divergent plate boundaries changes the size of each sea as the continents move, but these are only potentially noticeable over a prolonged period of time. read more

At oceanic ridges most of the crustal movement is near the surface as sea-floor spreading causes plates to move apart and new crust is formed by magma pushing up from the mantle. These data from volcanoes, as well as earthquake locations, help to substantiate the model of plate tectonics. read more

The current effect has been estimated to be -0.3 mm/yr of equivalent sea level rise due to increasing ocean basin size. This effect is corrected in the satellite altimeter global mean sea level time series and contributes 0.3 mm/yr to the estimated global mean sea level. read more