How does the new seafloor form at the Mid-Ocean Ridge?
How does the new seafloor form at the Mid-Ocean Ridge?
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.
Why does new oceanic crust form at mid-ocean ridges?
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 does the new seafloor from?
Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge, tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. At a spreading center, basaltic magma rises up the fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form new seabed.
What happens at Mid-Ocean Ridge during seafloor spreading?
Sea-floor spreading is what happens at the mid-oceanic ridge where a divergent boundary is causing two plates to move away from one another resulting in spreading of the sea floor. As the plates move apart, new material wells up and cools onto the edge of the plates.
What is the role of the mid ocean ridge in the movement of lithospheric plates?
The mid-ocean ridge represents an area where, in accordance with plate tectonic theory, lithospheric plates (also called tectonic plates) move apart and new crust is created by magma (molten rock) pushing up from the mantle . …
What is the role of the 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 general age of crust at mid ocean ridges?
200 million years
Why are mid ocean ridges important?
Mid-ocean ridges are geologically important because they occur along the kind of plate boundary where new ocean floor is created as the plates spread apart. Thus the mid-ocean ridge is also known as a “spreading center” or a “divergent plate boundary.” The plates spread apart at rates of 1 cm to 20 cm per year.
What kind of animals live in the mid-ocean ridge?
“The ridge has the effect of compressing all marine life together into a thin layer, so you have the attaching animals such as corals, sponges and sea lilies, the burrowing and crawling animals, such as worms, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, star fish, crabs and sea spiders, as well as the swimming animals such as fish – …
What causes the formation of offsets in the mid-ocean ridge system?
– Offsets occur where two plates slide past each other. – Segments of a mid-ocean ridge are initially aligned. Transform faults form when different segments spread at different rates. – Offsets include both inactive and active segments.
Which of the following can we expect to find at a mid ocean ridge?
rift valley
What can you say about the rate of movement of materials coming out from the Mid Oceanic Ridge?
The movement of the materials in both ridge and subduction zone are the. same. The rising of the materials from the ridge are faster than in the subduction. zone.
What might happen if the magma under a mid-ocean ridge cools?
According to Hess’s theory, what might happen if the magma under a mid-ocean ridge cools? The plates on either side of the ridge might stop moving. You just studied 7 terms!