What began as a small crack in the Earth's crust is now the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a giant undersea mountain range. As magma rises to escape along this ridge new crust is formed, sea-floors spread, and continents drift around the globe.
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www.platetectonics.com/oceanfloors/africa.asp
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Our knowledge of the distribution of hydrothermal systems along the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge (full spreading rate 2-4 cm/year) is still in its infancy and, with only four deep-water active hydrothermal fields known, of which to date only two---TAG and Snake Pit---have been studied in any detail,
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www.agu.org/revgeophys/humphr01/node5.html
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New high-resolution side-scan sonar images of the axis of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) show volcanic constructs and faults and fissures that are similar in size and shape to those observed at well-studied subaerial rift zones such as Hawaii and Iceland.
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www.agu.org/sci_soc/eosdksmith.html
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Mid-ocean ridge that runs along the centre of the Atlantic Ocean, parallel to its edges, for some 14,000 km/8,800 mi – almost from the Arctic to the Antarctic ... Mid-Atlantic Ridge at Thingvellir, Iceland - Click to enlarge...
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www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0...
www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0007751.html
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Join Scripps researcher, Dr. Donna Blackman and the entire scientific team, as they guide the deep submersible Alvin to probe the depths of the North Atlantic - exploring undersea mountains of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
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earthguide.ucsd.edu/mar/intro.html
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These 'abyssal hills' can be thought of as the texture of the young seafloor, as wrinkles atop the broad ridge of oceanic spreading centers. Fig.6. A topographic section of Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The high flanks on both sides of the rift valley are shown in red.
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earthguide.ucsd.edu/mar/intro2.html
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The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which splits nearly the entire Atlantic Ocean north to south, is probably the best-known and most-studied example of a divergent-plate boundary. (Illustration adapted from the map This Dynamic Planet.)
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pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/ridge.html
pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/ridge.html
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Perhaps the best known of the divergent boundaries is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This submerged mountain range, which extends from the Arctic Ocean to beyond the southern tip of Africa, is but one segment of the global mid-ocean ridge system that encircles the Earth.
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pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/understanding.html
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