Qualification goals: The students acquire knowledge about the driving forces of plate tectonics and about the processes and structures that are related to the formation and evolution of plates and plate boundaries. They are able to discuss the interactions between mantle dynamics, plate tectonics, climate and topography. Course description: Composition and strength of the lithosphere; plate kinematics; driving forces of plate tectonics; geometry, kinematics, and dynamics of subduction zones; accretionary wedges; divergent plate boundaries; transform systems; orogeny and continental collision. Fault geometries and their connection with stress regimes; geological map interpretation of transpressive/transtensive, convergent, and divergent regions; quantification of endogenetic forces; quantification of plate motions.