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Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart.

Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart.
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Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart.
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01/01/1998
MAR-bathymetry.jpg
Date is approximate.
Caption from Oceanus magazine, Vol. 41, No. 1, Back Cover:
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge emerges as the South American and African plates pull apart at the “slow” rate of approximately 30 millimeters per year. The axis of the ridge is marked by a 2 kilometer-deep rift valley, typical of most slow-spreading ridges. Various processes create discontinuities in the ridge on several orders, which break it into segments that range in length (from 10 to 2,000 kilometers) and longevity (100,000 to tens of millions of years). This map reveals a first-order discontinuity called the Cox Transform Fault located at 32°15’ S (northwest of the tip of South Africa), a boundary formed perpendicular to the length of the ridge, where the edges of rigid tectonic plates slide past each other in opposite directions. The map also shows a 12-kilometer jog of the rift valley, a second-order discontinuity. Colors indicate depths from 1,900 (pink) to 4,200 meters (dark blue).
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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