Plate tectonics divides the tectonic units according to the activity of the structure, regardless of whether the units belong to dissimilarity matters. The shallow mantle subsystem takes into account the dissimilarity and motion dynamic sources of the system elements, and is suitable for the study of the Earth system. By dividing the Earth system into four subsystems: the Earth’s surface, the shallow mantle, the mantle convection and the core, the Earth system is viewed in entirety. The shallow mantle system consists of four heterogeneous elements with different mass interactions, they are the ocean lithosphere, the continental lithosphere, the ocean—continent transition zones and the asthenosphere. The current seismic tomography images support this division of the elements. The systematic actions reflects the mutual game between the ocean lithosphere and the continental lithosphere, and the ocean—continent transition zones act as the main battlefield between the expansion of the ocean floors and the accretion of the continental continent. The asthenosphere is the top layer of the mantle convection and is also the system’s energy reservoir and main power source. At a depth of less than 200 km, the material motion in the asthenosphere has been different from the plate motion pattern. The matter movement where is mainly large- scale creeping, including fluid extraction and permeation, local magma build- up and upwelling. The lithosphere plate floats above the peristaltic asthenosphere, and the hot fluid in the asthenosphere penetrates upward through breaks with lower viscosity of the lithosphere. At the same time, under the action of gravitation force, the lithosphere material can also move downwards, underplating to the bottom of the asthenosphere. From the current imaging results, we can find clear information about the movement of matter in the shallow mantle by compared with three- dimensional seismic wave velocity and resistivity perturbation images, and understand cognitive characteristics of the material movement.