The development of plate tectonics provided a physical basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries. Mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another. Transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, in which the continents move across the surface of the Earth over geologic time. They also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology. The power of the theory of plate tectonics lies in its ability to combine all of these observations into a single theory of how the lithosphere moves over the convecting mantle.