When plates collide or undergo subduction (that is – ride one over another), the plates tend to buckle and fold, forming mountains. Most of the major continental mountain ranges are associated with thrusting and folding or orogenesis.

What does the subduction create?

These plates collide, slide past, and move apart from each other. Where they collide and one plate is thrust beneath another (a subduction zone), the most powerful earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides occur.

How were mountains formed?

How Are Mountains Formed? The world's tallest mountain ranges form when pieces of Earth's crust—called plates—smash against each other in a process called plate tectonics, and buckle up like the hood of a car in a head-on collision.