Subduction

Real World Example

Imagine trying to fit all your clothes into an already full suitcase; as you push down on one side, something else inevitably gets pushed beneath or squeezed into a corner. This is similar to how, at the boundary between two tectonic plates, one plate gets forced beneath another due to immense pressures. Just as the clothes in your suitcase shift and compress to make room for more, the Earth's crust behaves similarly, with one plate diving beneath another in a process called subduction, where the "suitcase" is the Earth's crust and the "clothes" are the tectonic plates adjusting to fit.