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Article: Mid-Atlantic Ridge volcanic processes: how erupting lava forms Earth's anatomy.
- Article from:
- Oceanus
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On the islands of Iceland and Hawaii, the location and distribution of eruptive fissures and vents, lava flows, and other volcanic features provide critical pieces of information for understanding how magma is supplied to the shallow crust and subsequently erupted at the surface. Mid-ocean ridge segments, which are in some ways single volcanoes - although long and narrow compared to subaerial (land) volcanoes - are not as well known, primarily because they lie at water depths of 2,500 meters or more. With advanced imaging techniques, we are, however, now obtaining data over relatively large areas of the mid-ocean ridges at the scales necessary to make the same kinds of ...