 This is an overview video of the different types of plate tectonic boundaries. Please watch the more in-depth videos for a more detailed examination of these boundaries. We're going to use Google Earth to help us explore the different types of boundaries. There are three major types of boundaries. Divergent, Convergent, and Transform. Divergent boundaries are areas where new plate is being created. These happen along long volcano-type mountains. Not traditional, not volcanoes in the traditional sense that you're used to, but areas where you have the slow oozing of volcanism that's creating new oceanic plate. These are long ridges. We'll look at Google Earth in a second to see where these ridges are happening. That is where new plate is being created, plates are moving apart from each other. These are divergent boundaries. At Convergent boundaries, where you have ocean plate, you'll have subduction. This is where the ocean plate sinks into the mantle beneath another plate, which could be another type of ocean plate or a continental plate. When it sinks, it creates earthquakes along its trace as it sinks into the mantle. It also creates arcs of volcanoes as a result of the subduction. Let's take a closer look at Google Earth to see where this is happening on our planet. On Google Earth here, I have layers that show earthquakes and then a layer that shows the different plate boundaries. We can zoom in to the middle of the Atlantic and look at the plate boundary that goes right down the middle of the Atlantic. This is a divergent boundary, the mid-Atlantic ridge. This is where a new ocean plate is being made on either side of the boundary. If we look at the pattern of earthquakes, it follows very tightly in line with the divergent boundary. It lines up perfectly, all shallow earthquakes along this boundary. This is where decompression melting is happening and new ocean plate is being generated. If we look at the age of the seafloor around the mid-ocean ridge, we can see that the youngest plate in red follows right near the ridge and it gets older on either side as you move away from that ridge. Convergent boundaries, plates are being destroyed. These are most easily found by looking for a deep ocean trench. We'll look at the pattern of earthquakes in a second. Notice, here's the Aleutian Islands and right off the coast of the Aleutian Islands, there's a much deeper part of the ocean, which is a trench. We see this all around the Pacific in different parts. Here's the Mariana's islands and the Mariana's trench just off the coast of those. So there are many places where we have these deep ocean trenches and these mark subduction zones. We can look at the earthquakes associated with those trenches and see that right near the trench, the earthquakes were very shallow and they get deeper as you move further inland of the overriding plate. So the orange earthquakes are the shallowest and the redder the deepest in this picture and the plate is subducting to the north. This is where plate is being destroyed or reintroduced into the mantle. As this Pacific plate here is subducted, it makes volcanoes because you have flux melting where water from the subducted plate is mixing with the mantle and causing melting of the mantle above it. And in turn it creates a number of volcanoes represented here by triangles all along here. Another example where this is happening is the west coast of South America. You can see the pattern of earthquakes very clearly where you have shallow earthquakes near the trench and as you go further inland as the subducting plate dives deeper into the mantle, you have much deeper earthquakes. These subduction zones are where some of the largest earthquakes on earth happen and also where some of the most explosive volcanoes are created. Please watch the other videos for more detail on convergent and divergent boundaries. Transform boundaries for the sake of this video are just areas where there is accommodation for movement between the different plates. There are definitely earthquakes generated along these transform boundaries but no volcanoes because there is no subduction occurring and no decompression melting occurring. We'll talk about transform boundaries in more detail in the other videos. Thank you and I hope you learned some important information from this video.