Rivera Plate

[ ri-vair-uh pleyt; Spanish ree-ve-rah ]

noun

, Geology, Oceanography.

1. a small tectonic plate just south of the Baja California peninsula off the west coast of Mexico, believed to have separated from the Cocos Plate at least five million years ago.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Rivera Plate¹

First recorded in 1945–50; named after the Rivera Transform Fault (former name of the Rivera Fracture Zone ) that borders it on the southwest