Neptune's Needle

Submarine mountain range; c.300-600 miles wide. Extends c.10,000 miles from Iceland, c.67ºN, to near the Antarctic Circle, c.55ºS, and occupying the axis of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately midway between the opposite shores of the continents. It is part of the mid-oceanic ridge system which forms a belt more than 37,000 miles long that circles the world. The highest peaks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge reach more than 13,000 ft above the ocean floor. The ridge, which is a center of volcanic activity and earthquakes, has a 6-19-miles wide trough that is constantly widening and filling with molten rock from the earth's interior. The bilateral movement of oceanic crust away from its source along the mid-oceanic ridge is called sea-floor spreading and results in the continents moving away from each other. A recent discovery has been a site, c.280 miles SW of the Azores, 36ºN, described as a 100 sq mile area with more than 100 smoking vents, at 7,700 ft, one of the largest volcanic vent fields in the Atlantic Ocean. First identified by Marie Tharp.

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Peter Richards