Define A Ocean Floor Rift

As the two active rifts continue to open eventually the.

Define a ocean floor rift. Running over 10 000 miles through the atlantic ocean the mid atlantic ridge is the longest mountain range on the planet. Hess theory was that new seafloor is formed when magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid ocean ridge. When she inked in and cross hatched the spaces the topographical profile of the north atlantic was evident with mountains and plains and a very obvious mid ocean rift valley indicating continental drift a horrifying concept for geologists to grasp in 1952. Individually ocean ridges are the largest features in ocean basins.

This divergent plate boundary moves apart at a rate of 2 5 cm per year relatively slow for a divergent plate boundary and rises 2 3 km above the ocean floor. The most popular mechanism for this outward movement is sliding along the volcano ocean floor interface which consists of easily deformable sediments e g. A long narrow valley lying between two normal geologic faults. The ocean floor is thus pushed at right angles and in opposite directions away from the crests.

Ocean definition the vast body of salt water that covers almost three fourths of the earth s surface. Rift valleys usually form where the earth s lithosphere has become thin through extension associated with plate tectonic processes. If spreading continues past the incipient stage described above two of the rift arms will open while the third arm stops opening and becomes a failed rift or aulacogen. Collectively the oceanic ridge system is the most prominent feature on earth s surface after the.

By the late 1960s several american investigators among them jack e. Stress orientation of its huge neighbor and has adopted the same rift zone orientation from fiske jackson 1972. Mid ocean ridge definition is 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. Oliver and bryan l.

Rift valley definition graben.