Yes. In some places, like the pacific ocean, these giant plates of earth collide with each other. The heavier plate (usually the ocean plate) will eventually get wedged under the lighter one. This scrunches up the lighter plate all over part of its surface, causing mountains. The valley formed by the ocean plate going under the land plate forms deep ocean trenches. The ocean rock being slid under will eventually slide to a hot layer of the earth and be melted--some volcanoes form near these places because a lot more molten rock is produced around them.
As for them colliding and causing earthquakes, imagine what is going on there. Imagine you have two giant rocks being pushed into each other with massive amounts of constant force, however, they are frigging rocks--they are fairly solid and unyielding objects. Eventually though, even a giant rock finds that it isn't unbreakable when enough force is applied, and when it finally has a bit crumble off or weaken enough, those forces will finally be able to move the rock into the new empty space--which is an earthquake.
Meanwhile, plates on other places on earth, such as the middle of the atlantic, are not colliding--they are separating from each other. This opens a hole in the earth and allows magma to come to the surface, cool, and become new rock. At the moment most of the places in the world where plates are separating only (geologically) recently began doing so--so they are not close enough to the surface of the ocean to be volcanic islands, they are underwater volcanoes. Then they continue to separate and more rock gets added. The atlantic is constantly growing, and the pacific is constantly shrinking--and every now and then we feel that as an earthquake.
As for them colliding and causing earthquakes, imagine what is going on there. Imagine you have two giant rocks being pushed into each other with massive amounts of constant force, however, they are frigging rocks--they are fairly solid and unyielding objects. Eventually though, even a giant rock finds that it isn't unbreakable when enough force is applied, and when it finally has a bit crumble off or weaken enough, those forces will finally be able to move the rock into the new empty space--which is an earthquake.
Meanwhile, plates on other places on earth, such as the middle of the atlantic, are not colliding--they are separating from each other. This opens a hole in the earth and allows magma to come to the surface, cool, and become new rock. At the moment most of the places in the world where plates are separating only (geologically) recently began doing so--so they are not close enough to the surface of the ocean to be volcanic islands, they are underwater volcanoes. Then they continue to separate and more rock gets added. The atlantic is constantly growing, and the pacific is constantly shrinking--and every now and then we feel that as an earthquake.
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The plates well under the ground kilometres below, start to break apart and the sides starts to rumble on each other which cause the quake beginnings and when the plate completely sticks out of shape it makes a huge earthquake. its like breaking a piece of wood and trying to put it together without glue-they just rub along each other and one would slide off