PLATE BOUNDARIES

(Geology) According to the theory of Plate Tectonics, the locations where the rigid plates that comprise the crust of the earth meet. The plates move slowly on the molten material beneath in the process called Continental Drift. As the plates meet, the boundaries can be classified as divergent (places where the plates are moving apart, as at the mid-ocean ridges of the Atlantic Ocean), convergent (places where the plates are colliding, as at the Himalayas Mountains), and transform (places where the plates are sliding past each other, as the San Andreas fault in California).