What is oceanic ridge in geography?
oceanic ridge, continuous submarine mountain chain extending approximately 80,000 km (50,000 miles) through all the world’s oceans. Collectively, the oceanic ridge system is the most prominent feature on Earth’s surface after the continents and the ocean basins themselves.
What is a volcanic ridge?
Definition. Axial volcanic ridges (AVRs). Composite volcanic edifices, comprising an elongate, typically spreading-normal orientated topographic high, produced within the inner valleys of mid-ocean ridges, usually those that are slow spreading.
What is the role of mid-ocean ridge?
Mid-ocean ridges represent one of the most important geologic processes shaping the Earth: Over the last 200 million years, two-thirds of the Earth has been resurfaced through this process of seafloor spreading, either at conventional mid-ocean ridge spreading centers or at spreading centers in back-arc basins behind …
What is the mid-ocean ridge system?
The mid-ocean ridge is a continuous range of undersea volcanic mountains that encircles the globe almost entirely underwater. It formed and evolves as a result of spreading in Earth’s lithosphere—the crust and upper mantle—at the divergent boundaries between tectonic plates.
Where can you find a midocean rise?
Mid-ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries, where new ocean floor is created as the Earth’s tectonic plates spread apart.
How is an oceanic ridge formed?
A mid-ocean ridge or mid-oceanic ridge is an underwater mountain range, formed by plate tectonics. This uplifting of the ocean floor occurs when convection currents rise in the mantle beneath the oceanic crust and create magma where two tectonic plates meet at a divergent boundary.
How do ridges form?
How do volcanic mid-ocean ridges form?
Mid-ocean ridge volcanoes form where two plates are moving apart. As the plates move apart, cracks form in the crust. Magma from the mantle surges up these cracks, and erupts onto the surface, forming new crust. Mid-ocean ridge volcanoes produce huge volumes of lava.
What is a mid-ocean ridge simple definition?
: an elevated region with a central valley on an ocean floor at the boundary between two diverging tectonic plates where new crust forms from upwelling magma.
What is a mid-ocean ridge and how does it form?
Mid-ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries, where new ocean floor is created as the Earth’s tectonic plates spread apart. As the plates separate, molten rock rises to the seafloor, producing enormous volcanic eruptions of basalt.
Where are the mid-ocean ridges?
What happens during sea floor spreading?
Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor. Eventually, the crust cracks.
What is an example of a mid-ocean ridge?
The most prominent examples of the mid-oceanic ridge transform zones are in the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa. Known as the St. Paul, Romanche, Chain, and Ascension fracture zones, these areas have deep, easily identifiable transform faults and ridges.
What is the mid – ocean ridge system?
The mid-ocean ridge is an interconnected system of undersea volcanoes that meander over the Earth like the raised seams on a baseball. It is a continuous 40,000-mile (60,000-kilometer) seam that encircles Earth and bisects its oceans.
How old is the mid ocean ridge?
The youngest rock in the oceans is found at mid-ocean ridges, where they are formed continually – the oceanic crust. The oldest oceanic crust rocks in the oceans are found in the trenches. They are typically 200 million years old. The oldest one is 280 millions years, in the Mediterranean Sea.
What is mid – Pacific Ridge?
The East Pacific Rise is a mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean . It separates the Pacific Plate to the west from (north to south) the North American Plate , the Rivera Plate , the Cocos Plate , the Nazca Plate , and the Antarctic Plate .