Talk:Mid-ocean ridge

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Questions

Diagram showing mantle convection is totally misleading. Mid-ocean ridges do not lie over upwellings from the core-mantle boundary. The current theory is that convection is driven by plate motion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dgeist1 (talk • contribs) 17:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Moving away from the mid-ocean ridge, ocean depth progressively increases until it reaches ocean trenches.

That's not always true. Atlantic ocean basin has passive margins, most of it has no subduction zones. Siim 18:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

The area around the mid-ocean ridge is dominated by volcanic basalts

What is volcanic basalt? Siim 18:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

'...total length of the system is 80,000 kilometers (50,000 mi)'

Maybe I've missed something, but that's larger than the circumference of the Earth by a good deal (ie nearly double), so can this figure be right?

It depends a bit on how you measure it, but it is certainly at least 55,000 km in total length for the entire system, and perhaps as much as the article says. (note the figure is for the total system, not just the "Mid Atlantic Ridge" for example) It winds its way around so much, and has multiple segments, it is pretty easy to come up with such a total. See the map at Plate tectonics. Cheers Geologyguy 15:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed section

I removed this section, mainly because I don't quite know how to clean them up.

The process responsible for the formation of new mid-ocean ridges (the transition from rift valley to mid-ocean ridge) is not fully understood, however the Red Sea is an example of where the Gulf of Suez to the north is though to represent the earliest stages of the mid-ocean ridge seen in the Southern Red Sea. Similarly, the northern Red Sea is thought to show the stage in between the Gulf of Suez and the Southern Red Sea.

If anyone can figure out what they mean, exactly, feel free to replace them. -- Joyous! | Talk 04:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency in movement rate

There is an inconsistancy betweeb this page and the one on mid-Atlantic ridge - this page says the movement is 10mm per year (each side?) and the mid-Atlantic page says the Atlantic is growing by 50-60mm year. Any one know the right figure?

Kert01 10:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

North Atlantic 10 mm whereas south Atlantic is the faster rate. The whole ridge is not spreading at a fixed or constant rate. Don't see a reference for either number though. Vsmith 11:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

What makes a ridge?

I think having a disclaimer is a bad idea. Instead, if these ridges are actually not Mid-ocean ridges, we could simply remove them from the article, especailly beacuse they are mostly all red-linked anyway.-Andrew c 04:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be fine with me to remove them - I was just not feeling bold enough... The ones I marked are not spreading centers in the sense of this article. They are eveything from hot-spot tracks to continental fragments. Cheers Geologyguy 14:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Rename

This article should be renamed for several reasons. First, many if not most such ridges are not "mid ocean". The feature off the Pacific Northwest is practically on the coast. Second, many are barely ridges. Third, there are oceanic ridges that are not spreading centers at all. I propose that the article be re-named "Oceanic spreading center". Tmangray (talk) 17:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, the current name is the one most commonly encountered. However, I do think that the points I made ought to be discussed in the text, if they are not already. I will create a redirect from Oceanic spreading center to this article. Tmangray (talk) 17:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both of your thoughts - "Oceanic spreading center" is certainly more correct, but "mid-ocean ridge" is in far more common usage, including in the professional literature. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 19:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Revision needed - will do this myself if/when I find time

• Formation Processes is confusing and needs work to bring it up-to-date

1) Slab pull is the driving force: ridge push doesn't contribute (it's a reaction to slab pull pulling the rift apart)

2) Confusion between formation of new crust by adiabatic decompression melting of mantle and the traction between the mantle lithosphere and the plastic upper mantle

Also, a generally better picture of ridges should be here, including (1) a diffusional profile of lithosphere thickness with distance from the ridge, and (2) description of the technical "mid-ocean ridge / spreading center" and the "ridges" that are the result of hot-spot tracks. Awickert (talk) 02:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

@Awickert: Hello. I just added a new discussion section where I propose major revisions. Please take a look. BrucePL (talk) 20:02, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

MORB

"MORB" (Mid-oceanic ridge basalt) should probably redirect to the Basalt article, where it has its own sub-point, instead of here. I don't know how to do this or I'd do it myself. Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.16.209.188 (talk) 15:09, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Article revision proposed

I want to make a series of edits to this article in the coming weeks to upgrade its content and accuracy. Significant content is out of date or incorrect. I want to revise the lead, figure 1, and the sections on volcanism, morphology, formation, global system, spreading rates etc. I would also like to reorganize the order of the sections. My plan is to work in increments editing one section at a time to gauge reaction from editors. I am a postgraduate marine geologist and retired UCSB professor. I am working with a colleague Kenneth C. Macdonald, who has published several peer-reviewed comprehensive articles on mid-ocean ridges, some of which appear in the current citations. Comments on my proposed plan are of course welcome. BrucePL (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Can I just add that over a year ago I 'adopted' BrucePL under WP:AAU, and, as his talk page will show, I have been supporting him as an an academic expert in how best to improve Wikipedia and share his expertise for the benefit of users. We are both keen to work collaboratively to that end. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:51, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

I welcome this proposal and I look forward to reading the changes. GeoWriter (talk) 13:10, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Formation processes

This section needs a lot of revision. I cleared up the erroneous explanation of ridge push. Now what's left are three topics: mantle convection, seafloor spreading, and marine magnetic anomalies. Mantle convection is wrong. This is an old, outdated idea. The discussion of spreading rates is redundant with sections above and should be deleted here. The discussion of magnetic anomalies is more suited to the page on seafloor spreading. This should be removed also, or a link-back used to replace it. BrucePL (talk) 22:05, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

cooling mantle half-space model

I propose moving a section of the article Seafloor spreading that deals with the mathematical model of a cooling mantle half-space, to this page; the MOR article. See; Seafloor spreading § Sea floor global topography: half-space model. The reason for me is that the treatment directly predicts the depths and profile of the MOR. On the SFS article page, I would put a link to the section on the MOR page. On the SFS talk page, you can read an exchange I had with the author of that half-space section Dan Gluck. He is fine with the move. Comments? BrucePL (talk) 17:37, 18 September 2019 (UTC)