The mid-ocean ridge runs through the oceans like a suture. Where Earth's plates move apart, new oceanic crust is continuously ...

Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have identified a new type of ocean ridge that is spreading so slowly that Earth's mantle is exposed over large regions of the sea floor ...

Image: Tiny crystals called zircons are used to date oceanic crust. A newly developed method that detects tiny bits of zircon in rock reliably predicts the age of ocean crust more than 99 percent of ...

Generally speaking, "ridge subduction" involves subduction of spreading oceanic ridges, aseismic ridges or oceanic plateaus and inactive arc ridges, and this common and important geological process ...

THE theory of ocean floor spreading requires that oceanic crust be generated at mid-ocean ridges. Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that the new crust is made largely of basalt and gabbro, ...

Ken Sims, a professor in UW’s Department of Geology and Geophysics, recently received a $325,841 National Science Foundation grant to look at understanding the processes and timescales of basalt ...

Sixty-million-year-old rock samples from deep under the ocean have revealed how huge amounts of carbon dioxide are stored for millennia in piles of lava rubble that accumulate on the seafloor. A new ...