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Convergent boundaries form where plates serving landmasses collide. Crust crumples and buckles into mountain ranges. India and Asia created abut 55 million years ago, slowly giving life to the Himalayas, the highest mountain system on earth. As the mash-up continues, the mountains get higher. Convergent boundaries also occur where a plate ocean dies, in a process called subduction, under a landmass. When the overlaying plate lifts up, it also forms mountain ranges. The diving plates melts and is often spewed out in volcanic eruptions. at ocean-ocean convergences, one plate usually dives beneath the other, forming deep trenches. These types of collisions can also lead to underwater volcanoes that eventually build up into islands like japan. The Nasca plate and south american plates form the andes mountains.

Transform boundaries are plates that grind past each other along what are called strike slip-faults. San Andreas fault in california is an example of a transform boundary. Transform boundaries don't produce spectacular features like mountains or oceans, but the halting motion usually triggers large earthquakes, like the 1906 one that devastated San Fransisco. Another example would be the Juan De Fuca plate sliding past the North American plate to form the San Andreas fault. Caribbean plate and North american plate made the caribbean islands, they slide back and forth today.

Divergent boundaries are when the plates split. Magma deep in the earths mantle rises toward the surface and pushes apart two or more plates. Mountains and volcanoes rise along the seem. The process renews the ocean floor and widens the giant basins. A single mid - ocean ridge connects the worlds oceans. On land, giant trenches such as the great rift valley in africa forms where plates are tugged apart. If the plates there continue to diverge, millions of years from now eastern africa will split from the continent to form a new landmass. The great crack in hawaii is another example.