Read About It! Plate Tectonics & Earth's Surface

The movement of ocean water

Convection currents in the mantle

Pressure from the outer core

Gravity pulling plates apart

Hot rock at the bottom rises, and cooler rock near the crust sinks, creating a circular motion.

Mantle materials move in straight lines due to gravity.

Heat causes the outer core to spin, moving the mantle.

Mantle rock moves toward the crust and stays there permanently.

Divergent, convergent, and transitional

Convergent, divergent, and transform

Transform, parallel, and subduction

Divergent, overlapping, and convergent

Two oceanic plates collide and create underwater peaks.

One plate slides under the other, creating a trench that pushes up the land.

Two continental plates collide, pushing the crust upward.

Plates move apart, and magma forms mountains.

Magma rises at transform boundaries, causing ocean basins to shrink.

At convergent boundaries, new crust forms, shrinking the ocean basins.

Plates move apart at divergent boundaries, forming new crust and enlarging the ocean basins.

Ocean basins grow smaller as dense plates sink into the mantle.

When two plates move apart, molten rock forms valleys underwater.

When one dense plate sinks beneath a less dense plate, it melts and forms a trench.

Ocean trenches form when two continental plates push downward.

Ocean trenches are formed by mid-ocean ridges growing taller.