it is the crust, and everything grows on it. they move around constantly at an incredibly slow pace, and float in the mantle. the mantle causes them to move around sometimes to cause earthquakes, by pulling them apart or pushing them together to make canyons and mountains respectively.
The lithosphere,which is the rigid outermost shell of the planet(the crust,and upper mantle),is broken into tectonic plates.The earth's lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates(depending on how they are defined)and many minor plates.In this way,the total surface of the lithosphere remain,the same.
