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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.

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15y ago

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