Divergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a

constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two
tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents
initially produce rifts, which eventually become rift valleys. Most active divergent plate
boundaries occur between oceanic plates and exist as mid-oceanic ridges.[1][2]

Continental-continental divergent/constructive boundary

Current research indicates that complex convection within the Earth's mantle allows material to
rise to the base of the lithosphere beneath each divergent plate boundary.[3] This supplies the
area with huge amounts of heat and a reduction in pressure that melts rock from the
asthenosphere (or upper mantle) beneath the rift area, forming large flood basalt or lava flows.
Each eruption occurs in only a part of the plate boundary at any one time, but when it does
occur, it fills in the opening gap as the two opposing plates move away from each other.

Over millions of years, tectonic plates may move many hundreds of kilometers away from both
sides of a divergent plate boundary. Because of this, rocks closest to a boundary are younger
than rocks further away on the same plate.

Description

Bridge across the Álfagjá rift valley in southwest Iceland, that is part of the boundary between the Eurasian and North
American continental tectonic plates.

At divergent boundaries, two plates move away from each other and the space that this creates
is filled with new crustal material sourced from molten magma that forms below. The origin of
new divergent boundaries at triple junctions is sometimes thought to be associated with the
phenomenon known as hotspots. Here, exceedingly large convective cells bring very large
quantities of hot asthenospheric material near the surface, and the kinetic energy is thought to
be sufficient to break apart the lithosphere.

Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge
system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise, and in the continental
lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley. Divergent
boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system. Spreading is generally
not uniform, so where spreading rates of adjacent ridge blocks are different, massive transform
faults occur. These are the fracture zones, many bearing names, that are a major source of
submarine earthquakes. A seafloor map will show a rather strange pattern of blocky structures
that are separated by linear features perpendicular to the ridge axis. If one views the seafloor
between the fracture zones as conveyor belts carrying the ridge on each side of the rift away
from the spreading center the action becomes clear. Crest depths of the old ridges, parallel to
the current spreading center, will be older and deeper... (from thermal contraction and
subsidence).

It is at mid-ocean ridges that one of the key pieces of evidence forcing acceptance of the
seafloor spreading hypothesis was found. Airborne geomagnetic surveys showed a strange
pattern of symmetrical magnetic reversals on opposite sides of ridge centers. The pattern was
far too regular to be coincidental as the widths of the opposing bands were too closely matched.
Scientists had been studying polar reversals and the link was made by Lawrence W. Morley,
Frederick John Vine and Drummond Hoyle Matthews in the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis.
The magnetic banding directly corresponds with the Earth's polar reversals. This was confirmed
by measuring the ages of the rocks within each band. The banding furnishes a map in time and
space of both spreading rate and polar reversals.

Examples

Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Red Sea Rift

Baikal Rift Zone - incipient plate boundary

East African Rift - incipient plate boundary

East Pacific Rise

Gakkel Ridge

Galapagos Rise

Explorer Ridge

Juan de Fuca Ridge

Pacific-Antarctic Ridge

West Antarctic Rift System

Southeast Indian Ridge

Other plate boundary types

Convergent boundary

Transform boundary

See also

Seafloor spreading – Geological process at mid-ocean ridges

Continental drift – Movement of Earth's continents relative to each other

Subduction zone – A geological process at convergent tectonic plate boundaries where one
plate moves under the other

References

1. Langmuir, Charles H.; Klein, Emily M.; Plank, Terry (2013). "Petrological Systematics of Mid-Ocean Ridge
Basalts: Constraints on Melt Generation Beneath Ocean Ridges". Mantle Flow and Melt Generation at
Mid-Ocean Ridges. Geophysical Monograph Series. pp. 183–280. doi:10.1029/GM071p0183 (https://doi.
org/10.1029%2FGM071p0183) . hdl:10161/8316 (https://hdl.handle.net/10161%2F8316) .
ISBN 9781118663875.

2. Sinton, John M.; Detrick, Robert S. (1992). "Mid-ocean ridge magma chambers". Journal of Geophysical
Research. 97 (B1): 197. Bibcode:1992JGR....97..197S (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992JGR....97..
197S) . doi:10.1029/91JB02508 (https://doi.org/10.1029%2F91JB02508) .

3. Toshiro Tanimoto; Thorne Lay (November 7, 2000). "Mantle dynamics and seismic tomography" (https://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC34063) . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97 (23): 12409–10.
Bibcode:2000PNAS...9712409T (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000PNAS...9712409T) .
doi:10.1073/pnas.210382197 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.210382197) . PMC 34063 (https://ww
w.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC34063) . PMID 11035784 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1103
5784) .

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