the process by which new sea floor is created, pushing two tectonic plates further apart, usually associated with a mid-ocean ridge and/or rift valley.
The formation and growth of oceans that occurs following rifting and is characterized by eruptions along mid-ocean ridges, forming new oceanic lithosphere, and expanding ocean basins. See also divergence.
The concept that new oceanic crust is created at the mid-ocean ridge as a result of divergence between plates.
The horizontal movement of oceanic crust.
The process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges in which convection currents below pull the plates apart and create new sea floor.
The gradual widening of an ocean basin as new oceanic crust forms at a mid-ocean ridge axis and then moves away from the axis.
The splitting apart of the oceanic crust along the line of a spreading ridge (such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) and the filling of the gap by basalt lava leads to the lateral growth of the oceanic crust. This means that continents to either side of an ocean containing such a ridge will be carried further and further apart. It also means that the youngest part of the oceanic crust is always distributed symmetrically to either side of a spreading ridge, with the crust being increasingly older away from the ridge.
n. The process of adding to the Earth's crust at mid-ocean ridges as magma wells up and forces previously formed crust apart.
surface and volume increase of the oceanic crust by new magma upwelling at the site of the mid-ocean ridge.
(in plate techtonics) the process by which the sea floor is being continuously formed and spread by upwellings from the earth's mantle along the mid-ocean ridges when crustal plates move apart, and continuously destroyed along the subduction zones, where plates push against each other and the sea floor sinks into the mantle. [AHDOS