A comprehensive survey of ISEE and IMP LEPEDEA plasma measurements in the earth's magnetotail reveals that the magnetospheric boundary layer and the plasma sheet boundary layer are the primary transport regions there. These plasma measurements also distinguish various components of the plasma sheet, including the central plasma sheet and plasma sheet boundary layer. A significant new result reported here is the existence of cold-and hot-plasma components that are spatially copresent within the central plasma sheet. Such plasma components cannot be explained merely by temporal variations in spectra involving the entire plasma sheet. Contributions to a low-temperature component of the plasma sheet enter directly from the boundary layer located along the magnetotail flanks. Field-aligned flows predominate within the plasma sheet boundary layer, which is almost always present and is located near the northern and southern border of the plasma sheet. The plasma sheet boundary layer comprises highly anisotropic ion distributions, including counteracting ion beams, that evolve into the hot, isotropic component of the plasma sheet.

Tailward acceleration regions generate these ion beams with plasma input from the magnetospheric boundary layer. Antisunward flowing ion beams, at E/q<1 kV and of ionospheric composition, are frequently observed in the plasma sheet boundary layer and in the tail lobes. These ion beams are likely accelerated at low altitude over the polar cap and especially along auroral field lines. An ionospheric component of the plasma sheet is supplied from this source via the plasma sheet boundary layer. On the basis of a survey of ~2000 three-dimensional velocity distribution functions sampled by the ISEE LEPEDEA in the magnetotail we find that interpretations based solely on moments parameters are inevitably inadequate for inferring plasma sources and acceleration processes. We find that earthward flowing ions or counterstreaming beams are often observed near expansive phase onset under conditions for which antisunward ion flow is predicted by the near-earth neutral line model of magnetospheric substorms. Magnetotail plasma flows sampled out to 38 RE and reported as typical of onset and recovery of magnetospheric substorms can only be adequately understood by considering spatial and temporal variations of the boundary layers described above.