The Mid-Ocean Ridges

Welcome to a web site dedicated to the workings of Mid Ocean Ridges.
This web page has been put together as part of my first year Geology Hons. degree at Bristol University , it was intended to get me accustomed with using the internet and allow me to familierize myself with HTML.

This shows the outline of the worlds mid-ocean ridges!

Mid-Ocean Ridges are where plates are created and are known as constuctive or divergent plate boundaries; these occur along spreading centers where plates are moving apart and new crust is created by magma pushing up from the mantle. Picture two giant conveyor belts, facing each other but slowly moving in opposite directions as they transport newly formed oceanic crust away from the ridge crest, this is illustated in the diagram bellow.

The best known of the constuctive boundaries is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This submerged mountain range extends from the Arctic Ocean to beyond the southern tip of Africa,but is only one segment of the global mid-ocean ridge system that encircles the Earth (see top of page picture). The average spreading rate along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge averages about 2.5 centimeters per year (cm/yr), or 25 km in a million years. This process has been going on for millions of years, and has resulted in plate movement of thousands of kilometers. Over the past 100 to 200 million years the Atlantic Ocean has grown from a tiny inlet of water between the continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas into the vast ocean that exists today.