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20-770: The Galápagos Rise is a divergent boundary located between the South American coast and the triple junction of the Nazca Plate , the Cocos Plate , and the Pacific Plate . The volcanically active Galápagos Islands exist on the Galápagos hotspot above the Galápagos Rise. The Galápagos microplate is a small separate plate on the rise just to the southeast of the triple junction. The Cocos Ridge trends northeasterly from
40-402: A major source of submarine earthquakes . A seafloor map will show a rather strange pattern of blocky structures that are separated by linear features perpendicular to the ridge axis. If one views the seafloor between the fracture zones as conveyor belts carrying the ridge on each side of the rift away from the spreading center the action becomes clear. Crest depths of the old ridges, parallel to
60-474: A map in time and space of both spreading rate and polar reversals. Fracture zone A fracture zone is a linear feature on the ocean floor—often hundreds, even thousands of kilometers long—resulting from the action of offset mid-ocean ridge axis segments. They are a consequence of plate tectonics . Lithospheric plates on either side of an active transform fault move in opposite directions; here, strike-slip activity occurs. Fracture zones extend past
80-546: A total of 350 km to the west. The section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between the two fracture zones is seismically active. The flow of major North Atlantic currents is associated with this fracture zone which hosts a diverse deep water ecosystem. The Heirtzler Fracture Zone was approved by the Advisory Committee on Undersea Features in 1993. The Mendocino Fracture Zone extends for over 4,000 km off
100-485: Is sometimes thought to be associated with the phenomenon known as hotspots . Here, exceedingly large convective cells bring very large quantities of hot asthenospheric material near the surface, and the kinetic energy is thought to be sufficient to break apart the lithosphere. Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and
120-483: The Earth's mantle allows material to rise to the base of the lithosphere beneath each divergent plate boundary. This supplies the area with huge amounts of heat and a reduction in pressure that melts rock from the asthenosphere (or upper mantle ) beneath the rift area, forming large flood basalt or lava flows. Each eruption occurs in only a part of the plate boundary at any one time, but when it does occur, it fills in
140-464: The East Pacific Rise , and in the continental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley . Divergent boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system. Spreading is generally not uniform, so where spreading rates of adjacent ridge blocks are different, massive transform faults occur. These are the fracture zones , many bearing names, that are
160-565: The Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge . The dominating feature of the fracture zone is the 150 km long Blanco Ridge, which is a high-angle, right-lateral strike slip fault with some component of dip-slip faulting . The Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone consists of two fracture zones in the North Atlantic that extend for over 2000 km. These fracture zones displace the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
180-654: The Romanche Trench , this fracture zone separates the North Atlantic and South Atlantic oceans. The trench reaches 7,758 m deep, is 300 km long, and has a width of 19 km. The fracture zone offsets the Mid-Atlantic Ridge by more than 640 km. The Sovanco Fracture Zone is a dextral-slip transform fault running between the Juan de Fuca and Explorer Ridge in the North Pacific Ocean . The fracture zone
200-651: The 1950s. This tectonics article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Divergent boundary In plate tectonics , a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary ) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially produce rifts , which eventually become rift valleys . Most active divergent plate boundaries occur between oceanic plates and exist as mid-oceanic ridges . Current research indicates that complex convection within
220-595: The Galápagos to the coast of Costa Rica and Panama . The Carnegie Ridge trends almost due east to the Ecuadorian coast. The Galápagos Rise is a currently active ridge. Fernandina Volcano on Fernandina Island , the most westerly island of the chain erupted on May 12, 2005 ejecting a column of ash that rose to a height of seven km from a fissure on the west side of the volcano. Volcanic ash fell on neighboring Isabela Island . Alcedo Volcano on Isabela Island last erupted in
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#1733085770764240-448: The coast of California and separates the Pacific plate and Gorda plate . The bathymetric depths on the north side of the fracture zone are 800 to 1,200 m shallower than to the south, suggesting the seafloor north of the ridge to be younger. Geologic evidence backs this up, as rocks were found to be 23 to 27 million years younger north of the ridge than to the south. Also known as
260-418: The current spreading center, will be older and deeper... (from thermal contraction and subsidence ). It is at mid-ocean ridges that one of the key pieces of evidence forcing acceptance of the seafloor spreading hypothesis was found. Airborne geomagnetic surveys showed a strange pattern of symmetrical magnetic reversals on opposite sides of ridge centers. The pattern was far too regular to be coincidental as
280-406: The offset in the magnetic striping, one can then determine the rate of past plate motions. In a similar method, one can use the relative ages of the seafloor on either side of a fracture zone to determine the rate of past plate motions. By comparing how offset similarly aged seafloor is, one can determine how quickly the plate has moved. The Blanco Fracture Zone is a fracture zone running between
300-538: The opening gap as the two opposing plates move away from each other. Over millions of years, tectonic plates may move many hundreds of kilometers away from both sides of a divergent plate boundary. Because of this, rocks closest to a boundary are younger than rocks further away on the same plate. At divergent boundaries, two plates move away from each other and the space that this creates is filled with new crustal material sourced from molten magma that forms below. The origin of new divergent boundaries at triple junctions
320-409: The plates on either side of an offset mid-ocean ridge move, a transform fault forms at the offset between the two ridges. Fracture zones and the transform faults that form them are separate but related features. Transform faults are plate boundaries, meaning that on either side of the fault is a different plate. In contrast, outside of the ridge-ridge transform fault, the crust on both sides belongs to
340-408: The same plate, and there is no relative motion along the junction. The fracture zone is thus the junction between oceanic crustal regions of different ages. Because younger crust is generally higher due to increased thermal buoyancy , the fracture zone is characterized by an offset in elevation with an intervening canyon that may be topographically distinct for hundreds or thousands of kilometers on
360-479: The sea floor. As many areas of the ocean floor, particularly the Atlantic Ocean, are currently inactive, it can be difficult to find past plate motion. However, by observing the fracture zones, one can determine both the direction and rate of past plate motion. This is found by observing the patterns of magnetic striping on the ocean floor (a result of the reversals of Earth's magnetic field over time). By measuring
380-686: The transform faults, away from the ridge axis; are usually seismically inactive (because both plate segments are moving in the same direction), although they can display evidence of transform fault activity, primarily in the different ages of the crust on opposite sides of the zone. In actual usage, many transform faults aligned with fracture zones are often loosely referred to as "fracture zones" although technically, they are not. They can be associated with other tectonic features and may be subducted or distorted by later tectonic activity. They are usually defined with bathymetric , gravity and magnetic studies. Mid-ocean ridges are divergent plate boundaries. As
400-526: The widths of the opposing bands were too closely matched. Scientists had been studying polar reversals and the link was made by Lawrence W. Morley , Frederick John Vine and Drummond Hoyle Matthews in the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis . The magnetic banding directly corresponds with the Earth's polar reversals. This was confirmed by measuring the ages of the rocks within each band. The banding furnishes
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