#tectonicplates — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

💧🌏 Greg Cocks @[email protected] · 2026-07-31 · 05:21 UTC

Anatomy Of A Seafloor Spreading Event Captured By In Situ Seismogeodesy
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10785-0 <-- shared paper
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-scientists-witness-the-seafloor-spread-in-real-time-giving-them-a-rare-glimpse-at-a-mysterious-geologic-process-180989123/ <-- shared technical media article
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H/T @Seabed 2030
“🔍 For the first time, scientists have observed seafloor spreading in real time.
Seafloor spreading is the process by which new oceanic crust is formed at mid-ocean ridges - a geological process that has shaped entire ocean basins over millions of years.
During a research expedition in the Indian Ocean, scientists had just deployed a suite of instruments when a series of earthquakes triggered a seafloor spreading event, allowing them to observe the process as it unfolded.
The findings offer rare new insights into how new oceanic crust forms and how the seafloor continues to evolve…”
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“Earth’s outermost layer - the crust - is constantly renewing itself. It’s broken into giant chunks called tectonic plates that pull apart, push against or slide past one another, creating grand geologic features.
Underwater mountain ranges, or mid-ocean ridges, for instance, generally take shape where two tectonic plates are moving away from each other. Magma can then bubble up in between, solidifying and turning into new oceanic crust as part of a process called seafloor spreading. Although the phenomenon has created entire ocean basins, it remains quite mysterious because it happens so deep in the water.
Now, for the first time, scientists have observed this dynamic activity happening in real time. They describe their findings - and their stroke of luck - in a study [link above], shedding light on a mechanism that made roughly two-thirds of Earth’s crust…”
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#Seabed2030 #OceanMapping #Hydrospatial #remotesensing #seafloor #seafloorspreading #oceanic #crust #geology #structuralgeology #IndianOcean #earthquake #midoceanridge #instrumentation #marine #seabed #hydrography #model #modeling #mapping #GIS #spatial #tectonicplates #magma #fortuitous #survey #seismogeodetic #monitoring #submarine #rifting #observation #volcanism #seismicity #dyke #fault #faulting #midoceanridge #MOR