The Scotia Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate bordering the South American Plate

South American Plate

The South American Plate is a continental tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America and also a sizeable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge....

 on the north, the South Sandwich Plate

South Sandwich Plate

The South Sandwich Plate or microplate is a tectonic plate bounded by the subducting South American Plate to the east, the Antarctic Plate to the south and the Scotia plate to the west.The South Sandwich Islands are located on this small plate.- References :...

 to the east, and the Antarctic Plate

Antarctic Plate

The Antarctic Plate is a tectonic plate covering the continent of Antarctica and extending outward under the surrounding oceans. The Antarctic Plate has a boundary with the Nazca Plate, the South American Plate, the African Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate, the Scotia Plate and a divergent boundary...

 on the south and west.

The north and south boundaries of the plate are transform fault

Transform fault

A transform fault or transform boundary, also known as conservative plate boundary since these faults neither create nor destroy lithosphere, is a type of fault whose relative motion is predominantly horizontal in either sinistral or dextral direction. Furthermore, transform faults end abruptly...

 boundaries. At the eastern margin the Scotia has a spreading boundary between it and the small South Sandwich Plate. The South American Plate

South American Plate

The South American Plate is a continental tectonic plate which includes the continent of South America and also a sizeable region of the Atlantic Ocean seabed extending eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge....

 is subducting under east side of the South Sandwich Plate, which is thought to have brought about its separation from the Scotia Plate, starting as backarc spreading. The western boundary with the Antarctic plate is a complex and rather ill-defined boundary.

The plate is named after the Scotia sea

Scotia Sea

The Scotia Sea is partly in the Southern Ocean and mostly in the South Atlantic Ocean.-Location and description:Habitually stormy and cold, the Scotia Sea is the area of water between Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands, South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, and...

, under which it lies.