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The most extensive rift valley is located along the crest of the mid-ocean ridge system and is the result of sea floor spreading. Examples of this type of rift include the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise .
The Vema, a ship of the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, traversed the Atlantic Ocean, recording echo sounder data on the depth of the ocean floor. A team led by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen concluded that there was an enormous mountain chain with a rift valley at its crest, running up the middle of the Atlantic Ocean ...
Hess' theory was that new seafloor is formed when magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid-ocean ridge. If spreading continues past the incipient stage described above, two of the rift arms will open while the third arm stops opening and becomes a 'failed rift' or aulacogen. As the two active rifts continue to open, eventually the ...
Map of the Great Rift Valley. The Great Rift Valley (Swahili: Bonde la ufa) is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6,000 or 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Mozambique in Southeast Africa.
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 .
Graben or rift valley: fallen and typically linear depressions or basins created by rifting in a region under tensional tectonic forces. Pull-apart basin caused by offset in a strike-slip or transform fault (example: the Dead Sea area). Oceanic trench: a deep linear depression on the ocean floor.
[13] [24] [25] In the FAMOUS area the median valley displays four provinces: the outer walls of the valley, which are normal faults with vertical movements that border the rift mountains; a mostly level terrace of varied width below these walls; inner walls to the valley floor that are also normal faults, and the relatively narrow median valley ...
(The ridge also has a secondary rift valley running its length.) The width is an average taken along the spreading ridges (Georgia–Senegal, Brazil – Bight of Benin, etc.). The greatest depth is the Romanche Trench. (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)