The Mariana Trench is not only the deepest place on our glorious planet we call Earth, but also a major recycling system. No, the trench does not gather up garbage and turn it into energy, but instead, it turns the Pacific Plate into molten lava, which will then form the 14 Mariana islands.

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The Pacific plate is moved to the left (from angle of picture), almost like a conveyor belt, because of its imbalance of weight. The Pacific Plate originates from the same plate that holds North America. Because it is formed from molten hot lava, the plate is buoyant and is light. As it moves to the north west (left), the plate gets cooler, therefore heavier.

As the Pacific plate moves towards its colliding plate, called the Philippine plate, its becomes extremely heavy, the heaviest plate of all. In cases like this one, the heavier plate always sinks beneath the lighter plate; and as the Pacific plate sinks beneath the Philippine plate, it pulls the rest of the Pacific plate along with it, which causes the continuous cycle. As you can see from the above picture, the Pacific and Philippine plates form a wedge shape. This is the Mariana trench. As a side note, the Mariana islands are also formed from the collision of both of the plates. As the Pacific plate sinks lower and lower beneath the Philippine plate, it once again becomes molten. This rock then moves its way upward, getting closer and closer to the surface of the Philippine plate. Once the newly molten rock breaks the surface of the Philippine plate, it forms brand new islands and volcanoes.

Image via Wikipedia