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| | Earth's Interior & Plate Tectonics |
 | | Plate tectonics involves the formation, lateral movement, interaction, and destruction of the lithospheric plates. |
 | | Continental rift valleys and vast plateaus of basalt are created at plate break up when magma ascends from the mantle to the ocean floor, forming new crust and separating midocean ridges. |
 | | Plates collide and are destroyed as they descend at subduction zones to produce deep ocean trenches, strings of volcanoes, extensive transform faults, broad linear rises, and folded mountain belts. |
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