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Rifting may lead to continental breakup and formation of oceanic basins. Successful rifting leads to seafloor spreading along a mid-oceanic ridge and a set of conjugate margins separated by an oceanic basin. [14] Rifting may be active, and controlled by mantle convection. It may also be passive, and driven by far-field tectonic forces that ...
Red Sea Rift between the African (Nubian) Plate and the Arabian plate The Red Sea Rift is a mid-ocean ridge between two tectonic plates , the African plate and the Arabian plate . It extends from the Dead Sea Transform fault system, and ends at an intersection with the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift , forming the Afar triple junction in ...
The addition of these magmatic materials usually contributes to the further rifting of the slope, in addition to generating fissure eruptions from those dykes that reach the surface. It is the grouping of these fissures, and the dykes that feed them, that serves to delineate where and whether a rift zone is to be defined. [2]
Earlier theories by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit of continental drift postulated that continents in motion "plowed" through the fixed and immovable seafloor. The idea that the seafloor itself moves and also carries the continents with it as it spreads from a central rift axis was proposed by Harold Hammond Hess from Princeton University and Robert Dietz of the U.S. Naval Electronics ...
Continental rifting forms new ocean basins. Eventually the continental rift forms a mid-ocean ridge and the locus of extension moves away from the continent-ocean boundary . The transition between the continental and oceanic lithosphere that was originally formed by rifting is known as a passive margin.
The Wilson cycle theory is based upon the idea of an ongoing cycle of ocean closure, continental collision, and a formation of new ocean on the former suture zone.The Wilson Cycle can be described in six phases of tectonic plate motion: the separation of a continent (continental rift), formation of a young ocean at the seafloor, formation of ocean basins during continental drift, initiation of ...
Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This causes the oceanic plate to buckle and usually results in a new mid-ocean ridge forming and turning the obduction into subduction. [citation needed]
These are where two plates slide apart from each other. At zones of ocean-to-ocean rifting, divergent boundaries form by seafloor spreading, allowing for the formation of new ocean basin, e.g. the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and East Pacific Rise. As the ocean plate splits, the ridge forms at the spreading center, the ocean basin expands, and finally ...