What Is The East Pacific Rise

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What does the East Pacific Rise do?

The East Pacific Rise forms part of the circumglobal system of active volcanic ridges all of which define the position of diverging plates where new crust is being created. Such ridges represent the locus of global shallow-water earthquakes.

What is unique about the East Pacific Rise?

Four characteristics of the Rise especially intrigue scientists: 1) like other ocean ridges it is the site of many shallow earthquakes 2) beneath its crest the crust of the earth thins out becoming two miles thick rather than the three miles of typical ocean basins and perhaps twenty under the continents 3) heat …

Where does the East Pacific Rise start and end?

It runs south from the Gulf of California in the Salton Sea basin in Southern California to a point near 55° S 130° W where it joins the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge trending west-southwest towards Antarctica near New Zealand (though in some uses the PAR is regarded as the southern section of the EPR).

What landform is the East Pacific Rise?

mid-ocean ridge

The East Pacific Rise is a mid-ocean ridge that runs through the eastern Pacific Ocean and separates the Pacific plate from the North American plate the Cocos plate the Nazca plate and the Antarctic plate.

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Why does the East Pacific Rise spread faster?

The magma cools and forms a dense rock called a diabase. This type of rock is found in the lower part of the ocean crust. … Faster spreading ridges like the northern and southern East Pacific Rise are “hotter ” meaning more magma is present beneath the ridge axis and more volcanic eruptions occur.

What plate is the Mariana Trench on?

Pacific plate
The Mariana Trench in the South Pacific Ocean is formed as the mighty Pacific plate subducts beneath the smaller less-dense Philippine plate. In a subduction zone some of the molten material—the former seafloor—can rise through volcanoes located near the trench.Jul 13 2015

What is the Earth deepest point called?

The Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest location on Earth.

Which plate among the four plates separated by the East Pacific Rise is moving the fastest?

Rates of motion

These average rates of plate separations can range widely. The Arctic Ridge has the slowest rate (less than 2.5 cm/yr) and the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island in the South Pacific about 3 400 km west of Chile has the fastest rate (more than 15 cm/yr).

Is the East Pacific Rise spreading faster than the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?

The East Pacific Rise is spreading faster than the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The wide swath of red and orange parallel to the East Pacific Rise illustrates that a large area of oceanic rocks are very young.

Are mid-ocean ridges?

Mid-ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries where new ocean floor is created as the Earth’s tectonic plates spread apart. … Two well-studied mid-ocean ridges within the global system are the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise.

When was the East Pacific Rise discovered?

1979

These waters were measured to have temperatures about 20 °C (36 °F) above the ambient temperature. In 1979 hydrothermal vents with temperatures near 350 °C (662 °F) were discovered on the East Pacific Rise off Mexico.

Is the East Pacific Rise a subduction zone?

The mid-ocean ridges are tectonic plate boundaries where new ocean crust forms. … The islands are a manifestation of intersecting plate boundaries—the spreading center of the East Pacific Rise which traces south from the Gulf of California and the subduction zone that consumes the Cocos plate beneath southern Mexico.

How is East Pacific Rise formed?

The resulting underwater volcanoes spread lava across large areas of seafloor and form the core of the East Pacific Rise. Water percolating down into these lava flows is heated then rises back toward the seafloor forming hydrothermal (hot water) vents in the seafloor.

Which of the following rocks would you expect to form at the East Pacific Rise?

The apical parts of large volcanoes along the East Pacific Rise (islands and seamounts) are encrusted with rocks of the alkali volcanic suite (alkali basalt andesine- and oligoclase-andesite and trachyte).

Where is the northern East Pacific Rise?

The EPR is located on the south-eastern Pacific basin approximately parallel to the west coast of the South America. The north crest of the EPR forms the plate boundary between Pacific and Cocos plates while the south crest forms between Pacific and Nazca plates (Fig. 1b).

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What is the fastest spreading ridge?

The fastest present-day seafloor spreading ~150 km/Myr occurs along the Pacific-Nazca boundary between the Easter and Juan Fernandez microplates.

Which has the longest underwater chain of mountains?

the Mid-Ocean Ridge

The longest submarine mountain range is the Mid-Ocean Ridge extending 65 000 km (40 000 miles) from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean around Africa Asia and Australia and under the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of North America. It has a greatest height of 4 200 m (13 800 ft) above the base ocean depth.

Is Pacific Ocean spreading?

Seafloor spreading is when tectonic plates split from each other creating a new oceanic crust. While the Pacific Ocean is slowly shrinking the Atlantic Ocean is expanding.

Is Megalodon in the Mariana Trench?

According to website Exemplore: “While it may be true that Megalodon lives in the upper part of the water column over the Mariana Trench it probably has no reason to hide in its depths. … However scientists have dismissed this idea and state that it is extremely unlikely that the megalodon still lives.

What happens to the lithosphere when it Subducts?

Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth’s mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate the heavier plate dives beneath the second plate and sinks into the mantle.

Are there monsters in the Mariana Trench?

Despite its immense distance from everywhere else life seems to be abundant in the Trench. Recent expeditions have found myriad creatures living out their lives at the bottom of the sea-floor. Xenophyophores amphipods and holothurians (not the names of alien species I promise) all call the trench home.

Why is the ocean blue?

The ocean is blue because water absorbs colors in the red part of the light spectrum. Like a filter this leaves behind colors in the blue part of the light spectrum for us to see. The ocean may also take on green red or other hues as light bounces off of floating sediments and particles in the water.

How deep can humans go in the ocean?

The deepest point ever reached by man is 35 858 feet below the surface of the ocean which happens to be as deep as water gets on earth. To go deeper you’ll have to travel to the bottom of the Challenger Deep a section of the Mariana Trench under the Pacific Ocean 200 miles southwest of Guam.

Who named the Pacific ocean?

Explorer Ferdinand Magellan
Explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the Pacific Ocean in the 16th Century. Covering approximately 59 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth the Pacific is by far the largest of the world’s ocean basins.Feb 26 2021

How do you describe the Pacific plate?

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million km² (40 million sq mi) it is the largest tectonic plate. The Pacific Plate contains an interior hot spot forming the Hawaiian Islands.

What do you think is the plate motion between the Philippine plate and Pacific Plate?

The Philippine Sea plate is tectonically unusual in that almost all the boundaries are convergent. The Pacific plate is subducting beneath the Philippine Sea plate to the east while the west/northwestern part of the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the continental Eurasian plate.

Where is the East Pacific Ocean?

The Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETPO) extends along the Pacific Coast of Central America from southern Mexico to northern Peru encompassing a surface of 199 665 900 ha of coastal and marine habitats (IOC-UNESCO & UNEP 2015) and 20 853 000 ha of continental shelf.

Why is the oldest ocean floor only 200 million years old?

Most oceanic crust is less than 200 million years old because it is typically recycled back into the Earth’s mantle at subduction zones (where two tectonic plates collide). …

Where are the rocks of the ocean floor the youngest?

mid-ocean ridges

The youngest rocks in the ocean floor are located at the mid-ocean ridges. Although the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is mostly an underwater feature portions of it such as the island of Iceland have enough elevation to extend above sea level.

Where is the oldest rock on the ocean floor?

the Mediterranean Sea
The oldest seafloor is comparatively very young approximately 280 million years old. It is found in the Mediterranean Sea and is a remnant of an ancient ocean that is disappearing between Africa and Europe.

What is the largest underwater mountain range?

The mid-ocean ridge
The mid-ocean ridge is the longest mountain range on Earth. The longest mountain range on Earth is called the mid-ocean ridge. Spanning 40 389 miles around the globe it’s truly a global landmark. About 90 percent of the mid-ocean ridge system is under the ocean.Feb 26 2021

Are tectonic plates?

Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth’s crust and uppermost mantle together referred to as the lithosphere. The plates are around 100 km (62 mi) thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called sima from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (sial from silicon and aluminium).

How do ridges form?

A mid-ocean ridge or mid-oceanic ridge is an underwater mountain range formed by plate tectonics. This uplifting of the ocean floor occurs when convection currents rise in the mantle beneath the oceanic crust and create magma where two tectonic plates meet at a divergent boundary.

At which point would the oldest bedrock be found?

Bedrock along the northeast coast of Hudson Bay Canada has the oldest rock on Earth. Canadian bedrock more than 4 billion years old may be the oldest known section of the Earth’s early crust.