ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Boundaries between the continents of Earth

Okay kiddo, you know that the earth is a big round ball right? Think of it like a big orange. The earth's surface is made up of different pieces, like the peel of the orange. These pieces are called tectonic plates.

Now, we have seven big chunks of land on our earth and we call them continents. Do you know what they are? Let me tell you - they are Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

These continents rest on top of the tectonic plates, just like how the peel of an orange sits on the fleshy part of it. But here's the thing - the tectonic plates move around all the time, even though they move very, very slowly.

So where the plates meet and bump into each other, that's where boundaries are formed. There are three kinds of boundaries - divergent, convergent, and transform.

A divergent boundary is where the plates move away from each other. It's like if two people were holding a piece of paper together and move their hands apart. Over time, these boundaries can form cracks in the ocean floor which can create underwater mountains and volcanoes.

A convergent boundary is the opposite, where the plates move towards each other. If they collide, one plate can go under the other and get pushed deeper into the Earth. This can create mountains, like the Himalayas.

A transform boundary is where two tectonic plates slide past each other in opposite directions. These boundaries can cause earthquakes because of the hit and slide interaction of the plates.

So, to sum it up, the boundaries between the continents are formed by the movement of the tectonic plates on which the continents sit. These boundaries can be divergent, convergent or transform, and over time can create mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes.