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Mid-ocean ridge cross-section (cut-away view) A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics.It typically has a depth of about 2,600 meters (8,500 ft) and rises about 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) above the deepest portion of an ocean basin.
The Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis, also known as the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis, was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics. Its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid-ocean ridges to be computed.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a divergent or constructive plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. In the North Atlantic, the ridge separates the North American from the Eurasian plate and the African plate , north and south of the Azores triple junction .
The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones, rather than magma pressure, although there is typically significant magma activity at spreading ridges. [3] Plates that are not subducting are driven by gravity sliding off the elevated mid-ocean ridges a process called ridge push. [4]
A fracture zone is a linear feature on the ocean floor—often hundreds, even thousands of kilometers long—resulting from the action of offset mid-ocean ridge axis segments. They are a consequence of plate tectonics. Lithospheric plates on either side of an active transform fault move in opposite directions; here, strike-slip activity occurs ...
Ridge push is the result of gravitational forces acting on the young, raised oceanic lithosphere around mid-ocean ridges, causing it to slide down the similarly raised but weaker asthenosphere and push on lithospheric material farther from the ridges. [1] Mid-ocean ridges are long underwater mountain chains that occur at divergent plate ...
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory developed in the 1960s that explains major land form events, such as mountain building, volcanoes, earthquakes, and mid-ocean ridge systems. [26] The idea is that Earth's most outer layer, known as the lithosphere , that is made up of the crust and mantle is divided into extensive plates of rock.
Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This causes the oceanic plate to buckle and usually results in a new mid-ocean ridge forming and turning the obduction into subduction. [citation needed]