In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary is a place where plates are moving away from each other. Such places are located in the ocean where convection currents, which are heated, rise up and press against the bottom of the lithosphere. At this point, the plate bulges up as the current flows underneath it. This bulge, or ridge, now has pressure being exerted on each side of it as the current from below continually flows in opposite directions (pressing up into the bulge and then down each side). This causes the area at the top of the bulge to stretch increasingly thin. Eventually it gets so thin that it breaks and tears apart.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an example of a divergent boundary. The ridge is much higher than the seafloor due to a convection current flowing underneath it. Because of the constant movement due to pressure at this boundary, it is estimated that the Atlantic Basin is widening at about 1 cm to 10 cm every year.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Mid-Atlantic-Ridge
Thursday, August 15, 2019
What is an example of a divergent boundary?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment