Moving Plates

You see a cross-section of the Earth: the mantle below, two plates on top (oceanic, thin and under the sea; continental, thick) and arrows showing which way each one moves. If they move together the boundary is convergent; if they move apart, divergent; if they slide sideways, transform (that one is shown from above).

There are no options: you put each boundary in the box for its type, build the boundary (tap each plate to make it oceanic or continental and choose whether they move apart, collide or slide) or tap the plate that sinks. When you answer, what really forms is drawn: a ridge, a rift valley, a trench with volcanoes, an island arc, folded mountains or a fault that splits a road. The explanation tells you where it happens in the real world.

The key is which plates meet: oceanic crust is denser and sinks under continental crust (subduction), and that is where volcanoes appear; two continental plates do not sink, they collide and push up huge mountains with almost no volcanoes.

⏱️ 90s · Correct +10 and +6s · Wrong −5s