The Story Behind Our Tectonic Plates By: Anthony Bennett

Convergent Boundaries:

Convergent Boundaries

What the cycle looks like.

The way convergent boundaries work is pretty simple, basically as two plates are colliding, one of them has to be forced underground, underneath the other. The type of stress this creates is compression as the plates are pushing against each other.

Mt. Everest, worlds largest mountain.

Mt. Everest, out largest mountain has been forming from convergent for millions of years. Every mountain has gone through this stage and keeps going through it. Since Mt. Everest is known for it's amazing hight, that's the world's most commonly known mountain.

From the bottom of Mt. Everest

Divergent Boundaries:

Divergent Boundaries

How divergent boundaries work.

Divergent boundaries are formed when two plates (Oceanic or Continental) pull away from each other creating a large trench in Earth's crust. The type of stress that is being created is tension due to the plates pulling away.

What diversion creates.

During the process of diversion, faults, mountains, and most commonly volcanoes. Volcanoes are created because the energy released from underground rises and is released from the opening.

The largest landform made by diversion is the Great Rift Valley. With a long ways to go, the trench stretches about 7,000 kilometers in length though the northeast side of South America.

Transform Boundaries:

Transform Boundaries

The way it works.

Transform boundaries are the cycle with the most uninteresting phases, with just sliding plates. Transformation causes shear stress when slides grind against each other. This cycle creates faults, islands, and volcanic mountains. Transformation created the San Andreas Fault that stretches just about 800 miles.

San Andreas Fault from above.

The End.

Credits:

Created with images by skeeze - "earth space moon" • pmlbird - "PML Convergent Boundary" • SamHawleywood - "Nepal 21"

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