How Plates Move
When two plates move away from each other lava or magma comes out of the earth. Most of this happens at the bottom of oceans, where the earth’s crust is very thin. Lava cools down when it reaches the water and underwater mountains are formed.
When plates push towards each other—one of them slides under the other. Rocks are pushed up and new mountains are formed.
Some plates slide past each other— for example, one moves north and the other moves south . When these plates move along faults a lot of energy is released and the biggest earthquakes happen.
We only hear about earthquakes once in a while , but they really happen every day. There are more than 3 million earthquakes every year—about 8,000 every day or one every 11 seconds.
But most of them are very weak or they happen in places where nobody lives. Some of them take place on the sea floor.
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Two plates moving away from each other |
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