The Pacific Plate, for example, is moving slowly to the northwest, sliding past the North American Plate. The San Andreas Fault is one boundary along the California coastline. Vibrations from plate movements along this boundary are the famous California earthquakes. The trench is formed from the down-bending associated with subduction and the volcanic mountains from subducted and melted crust that rise up through the overlying plate to the surface. The earthquakes are associated with the movement of the subducted crust under the overlying crust.
Divergent boundaries occur between two plates moving away from each other.
Magma forms as the plates separate, decreasing pressure on the mantle below. This molten material from the asthenosphere rises, cools, and adds new crust to the edges of the separating plates. The new crust tends to move horizontally from both sides of the divergent boundary, usually known as an oceanic ridge. A divergent boundary is thus a new crust zone. Most new crust zones are presently on the seafloor, producing sea-floor spreading.