earthquakes, volcanoes, mid-ocean ridges and ocean trenches
Thus at convergent boundaries, continental crust, made of granite, is created, and oceanic crust is destroyed. Two plates sliding past each other forms a transform plate boundary. Natural or human-made structures that cross a transform boundary are offset—split into pieces and carried in opposite directions. Deep ocean trenches, volcanoes, island arcs, submarine mountain ranges, and fault lines are examples of features that can form along plate tectonic boundaries. Superheated molten lava, about 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, is about to explode into the water at the West Mata volcano along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Opposite of a convergent boundary, a divergent boundary is formed by the spreading of a tectonic plate. This process feeds magma to the surface, creating new crust. Divergent zones in oceanic plates form a geological feature called a ridge, forced upward by the pressure of the rising magma. The third type of plate boundary occurs where tectonic plates slide horizontally past each other. This is known as a transform plate boundary. As the plates rub against each other, huge stresses are set up that can cause portions of the rock to break, resulting in earthquakes. In the theory of plate tectonics, the earth's crust is broken into plates that move around relative to each other. As a result of this movement, three types of plate boundaries are formed: divergent, convergent, and transform boundaries. Plates move away from one another at divergent boundaries. This happens at mid-ocean ridges. Plates move towards one another at convergent boundaries; one plate is forced below another in a process called subduction. Earthquakes and composite volcanoes are common at this type of boundary. Some features, such as earthquakes and volca-noes, are more common at tectonic plate boundaries than at other places on Earth. Other features, such as mid-ocean ridges and ocean trenches, form only at plate boundaries. There are three types of plate boundaries: • divergent boundaries, where plates move apart; • convergent boundaries, where plates move together; and • transform boundaries, where plates slide past each other. The features that form at a plate boundary depend on what kind of plate boundary it is.
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/plate-boundaries.html http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/tectonic-features.html http://www.ehow.com/info_8396178_types-geography-features-plate-boundary.html http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/tectonic-features.html http://study.com/academy/lesson/plate-boundaries-convergent-divergent-and-transform-boundaries.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/surface_and_interior/plate_boundary http://www.middletownschools.org/uploaded/faculty/sullivanj/Theory_of_Plate_Tectonics.pdf
which features are commonly formed at the plate boundaries