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Where rifts remain above sea level they form a rift valley, which may be filled by water forming a rift lake. The axis of the rift area may contain volcanic rocks, and active volcanism is a part of many, but not all, active rift systems. Major rifts occur along the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust and lithosphere ...
(The Puerto Rico Trench is not part of the rift system.) Great Rift Valley: 6,000 km (3,700 mi) 220 km (140 mi) 2 km (1 mi) Width and depth are those of the Red Sea Rift, discounting continental shelves < 200 m deep. (These may not be the extremes of the whole rift system.) Length of the Red Sea section 2,250 km (1,400 mi).
Most mid-ocean ridges of the world are connected and form the Ocean Ridge, a global mid-oceanic ridge system that is part of every ocean, making it the longest mountain range in the world. The continuous mountain range is 65,000 km (40,400 mi) long (several times longer than the Andes , the longest continental mountain range), and the total ...
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a divergent or constructive plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. In the North Atlantic, the ridge separates the North American from the Eurasian plate and the African plate , north and south of the Azores triple junction .
Aegir Ridge – Extinct mid-ocean ridge in the far-northern Atlantic Ocean; Anza trough – Rift in Kenya that was formed in the Jurassic Period; Bahr el Arab rift – Major geological feature in the southwest Sudan; Benue Trough – Major geological structure underlying a large part of Nigeria
One of the best known examples of this process is the East African Rift. [1] On Earth, rifts can occur at all elevations, from the sea floor to plateaus and mountain ranges in continental crust or in oceanic crust. They are often associated with a number of adjoining subsidiary or co-extensive valleys, which are typically considered part of the ...
This occurs between 54°–67°E, the deepest, and perhaps coldest and most melt-poor, part of Earth's mid-ocean ridge system. Crustal thickness decreases quickly as spreading rates drop below c. 20 mm/yr and in the SWIR there is an absence of volcanic activity along 100 km (62 mi) stretches of ridge axis.
The Pacific Ocean evolved in the Mesozoic from the Panthalassic Ocean, which had formed when Rodinia rifted apart around 750 Ma. The first ocean floor which is part of the current Pacific plate began 160 Ma to the west of the central Pacific and subsequently developed into the largest oceanic plate on Earth. [1]