What type of landform is the Mid Atlantic Ridge?
volcanic mountain range
What are mid-ocean ridges in the middle of the ocean called?
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.
What is an example of mid ocean ridge?
Mid-ocean ridges form where two tectonic plates are pulling apart, also called seafloor spreading. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is spreading one to two inches a year, along with the East Pacific Rise, which is spreading two to six inches a year, are two examples of very long mid-ocean ridges.
Are there volcanoes at mid ocean ridges?
The mid-ocean ridge is a continuous range of undersea volcanic mountains that encircles the globe almost entirely underwater. The vast majority of volcanic activity on the planet occurs along the mid-ocean ridge, and it is the place where the crust of the Earth is born.
What type of lava is most common at mid ocean ridges?
Mid-Ocean Ridge Magmatism: By far, the dominant type of lava resulting from magmatic activity at mid-ocean ridges is basalt, also called mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB). However, small amounts of other extrusive magma types (predominantly andesite, dacite, and picrite) also erupt there.
What can you find in 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.
What causes melting at mid ocean ridges?
As mantle ascends beneath the mid-ocean ridge, less and less rock lies above it, so large pressure changes occur, which leads to melting. The melt is less dense than the solid, and rises to the surface to form the oceanic crust.
Do mid-ocean ridges support life?
Within the volcanic upper crust, subterranean chambers and fractures filled with heated water act as incubators for microbes that live in some of the harshest conditions ever discovered to support life. These microbes are the foundation for a rich ecosystem that thrives only at these hydrothermal vents.
Why is magma generated at mid-ocean ridges?
Abstract. Mid-ocean ridges are considered the planet’s largest magmatic system. At divergent plate boundaries, magma is generated by decompression melting of upwelling mantle. Melts are focused as they ascend through the upper mantle and lower crust and collect beneath the ridge axis in elongate melt lenses.
Why do ocean water depths increase away from the mid-ocean ridges?
Since hot rocks are in a more expanded state and then contract as they cool (as they spread away from the ridge), the midocean ridges stand up high above the surrounding seafloor. The seafloor depth increases with distance away from the midocean ridges.
Why do ocean water depths increase away from the mid-ocean ridges quizlet?
Why do ocean water depths increase away from the midocean ridges? (Check all that apply.) Older oceanic crust is denser and thus sits lower on the asthenosphere. The accumulation of sediments over time adds weight to the seafloor.
What happens the farther the crust gets from the mid-ocean ridge?
The age, density, and thickness of oceanic crust increases with distance from the mid-ocean ridge. Oceanic crust slowly moves away from mid-ocean ridges and sites of seafloor spreading. As it moves, it becomes cooler, more dense, and more thick.
Where is a mid-ocean ridge located?
Atlantic Ocean
Why are rocks next to the Mid-Ocean Ridge younger than those farther away from the ridge?
How did scientists discover that rocks farther away from the mid-ocean ridge were older that those near the ridge? Oceanic crust near the mid-ocean ridge is younger than the crust farther from the ridge. The process by which oceanic crust sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle.
What is a deep crack that runs through the center of a mid-ocean ridge?
Running along the top of this chain of mountains is a deep crack, called a rift valley. It is here that new ocean floor is continuously created. As the two sides of the mountain move away from each other, magma wells up from the Earth’s interior.
Does the oceanic lithosphere get older or younger as you move closer to the mid-ocean ridge quizlet?
New oceanic crust is created at the mid- ocean ridge, therefore ocean crust gets older as we move away from the ridge.
Where is the oldest crust found in relation to the mid-ocean ridge?
The oldest patch of undisturbed oceanic crust on Earth may lie deep beneath the eastern Mediterranean Sea – and at about 340 million years old, it beats the previous record by more than 100 million years.
How old is the ocean crust at the Mid Atlantic Ridge?
Volcanism. Most crust in the ocean basins is less than 200 million years old, which is much younger than the 4.54 billion year age of the Earth.