Definition For Rift Ocean Floor

As the plates move apart magma from the upper mantle flows out onto the ocean floor in the valleys creating the newest crust on the planet.

Definition for rift ocean floor.

Rift valley definition graben. A rift valley is a lowland region that forms where earth s tectonic plates move apart or rift rift valleys are found both on land and at the bottom of the ocean where they are created by the process of seafloor spreading rift valleys differ from river valleys and glacial valleys in that they are created by tectonic activity and not the process of erosion. 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. The center of these mid ocean ridges are rift valleys that separate lie between the two separating plates.

Earth s most extensive rift valley occurs as a result of seafloor spreading and is situated along the mid ocean ridge system s crest. A mid ocean ridge mor is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics it typically has a depth of 2 600 meters 8 500 ft and rises about two kilometers above the deepest portion of an ocean basin this feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a divergent plate boundary the rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the crest of the mid ocean ridge and its. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. The global mid ocean ridges are found in all the oceans on earth.

Rift valleys usually form where the earth s lithosphere has become thin through extension associated with plate tectonic processes. Stress orientation of its huge neighbor and has adopted the same rift zone orientation from fiske jackson 1972. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. A long narrow valley lying between two normal geologic faults.

Where such a zone crosses a mid ocean ridge it displaces the ridge by faulting. Rift valleys occur on the continents as well as on the ocean floor where they arise from seafloor separation. Fracture zone definition a long narrow rift on the ocean floor separating areas of differing depth. The most popular mechanism for this outward movement is sliding along the volcano ocean floor interface which consists of easily deformable sediments e g.

On the continents rift valleys form in divergence zones of tectonic plates.