How does the mid-oceanic ridge form?

Answer 1

Since it is located at a divergent or lateral plate boundary, magma from the mantle flows out to the Earth's surface through a crack found on the Earth's crust. The magma cools and solidifies upon reaching the Earth's surface, forming a new landform made of magma or igneous rocks( derived from solidified magma) such as a volcano, or sometimes, a volcanic island, such as Hawaii. This usually occurs at ocean basins.

To correct the previous answer, Hawaii is not actually on a mid-ocean ridge, it is an island chain formed by a hotspot under a moving plate (you can tell because the oldest volcanoes are at one end and youngest at the other).

Volcanoes formed by the Pacific MOR tend not to reach the surface. Better examples are in the Atlantic: Iceland, the Azores, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha. Best example of what exactly is happening at the MOR is Bermuda, which was originally formed on the Atlantic MOR and has been pushed so far sideways as more crust formed in the centre, it is now far away from the active MOR.

Answer 2

Underwater volcanoes, trenches, and ridges form in the same manner that they form on land. Along tectonic plate boundaries, volcanoes are areas where magma rises and leaks from the crust. Ridges are akin to mountain ranges that are formed by the collision or subduction of plates. Trenches are where areas where two plates are moving apart.

Answer 3

Trenches form where the ocean plate sinks.

Ridges form where the ocean plates rise/form.

Do not use this info i got this wrong.

Answer 4

The best way to understand plate tectonics is to do a little experiment at breakfast time. Take an egg and hard boil it. Let it cool and then with the back of a teaspoon tap it gently in several places so that the shell cracks. what you will have in your hand is a shell that is still together but has cracked. The plates of the Earth are like the bits of shell of your cracked egg. On the Earth plates are made from solid basalt rock about 10km (6 miles) thick.

On your egg you will see that it is difficult to slide one bit of the shell past another but you nay be able to press on bit lower than another and that is what happens on the Earth's plates. They can move up or down in response to the pressures acting on them. Your egg is cold so this will not happen to it. But below the basaltic shell of the Earth there is much radioactive material which constantly heats up the upper mantle. This heat creates pressures and when the presure gets too much in an area the plate is lifted up, some pressure is released and the plate settles down again. This is what causes earth quakes at the plate boundaries and if the lifting up is high in an oceanic area this causes tsunamis.

Ridges are formed when as a result of the lifting up some of the liquid basalt under the plate escapes through the crack and solidifies on top. Sometimes when the plates are lifted up they can then slide downhill on the soft material under it and because some of the soft material escapes the edges of the plates are able to sink under their own gravity. Where such settlement of one plate relative to another takes place, a deep sea trench is formed.

Plates seem to be named according to the geographical place of where they are. Horizontal movements of the plates are extremely small for obvious reasons. But the continents are loosely connected to the top of the plates so if a plate is raised then any continent or part of it is liable to slide downhill on the plate which is how all the continents have moved away from where they were originally in the super continent Pangaea which was formed on the plates much later after the basaltic shell of the Earth had already formed.

I trust the above answers all the questions that have been raised on this

Answer 5

Along rift valleys, lava pours out of cracks in the ocean floor, gradually building new mountains.

Answer 6

They occur along a diverging plate boundary.

Answer 7

they are form when the tectonic plates move apart

Answer 8

they are formed from the uplift of newly formed oceanic crust by rising magma