Mid Ocean Spreading Increments or Continuous

Ocean, Spreading Center

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• First Online: 01 January 2021

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Part of the Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series book series (EESS)

Definition

The spreading center See SeeMid-ocean ridge, also known as a segment of the mid-ocean ridge, is an underwater mountainous feature with a rift valley lying between the two lithospheric plates, through which new magma material being continuously spread out and led to construction of the lithospheric plates on either side.

The ridge internal structure, the partially melted mantle up welled through the mid-ocean ridge segments/spreading centers, forms a basaltic crust of 3–6 km thick, but at a later stage, the same crust moves away from the ridge crest and allows growth of mantle component.

Introduction

The rigid outer layer of the Earth comprising the crust and uppermost mantle (generally about 70–100 km thick below the oceans), termed as oceanic lithosphere, is divided into a number of tectonic plates. Presently there are about eight major tectonic plates, viz., North American, South American, African, Indian, Australian, Antarctica, Eurasian, and Pacific; seven minor and...

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Centre for Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India

   K. S. Krishna

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K. S. Krishna .

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Editors and Affiliations

1. National Geophysical Research Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Hyderabad, India

   Harsh K. Gupta

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Krishna, K.S. (2021). Ocean, Spreading Center. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58631-7_235

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• DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58631-7_235

• Published: 27 May 2021

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• Print ISBN: 978-3-030-58630-0

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