The Mid-Labrador Ridge was a

mid-ocean ridge A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of about and rises about above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a diverge ...

in the

Labrador Sea The Labrador Sea (French: ''mer du Labrador'', Danish: ''Labradorhavet'') is an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean between the Labrador Peninsula and Greenland. The sea is flanked by continental shelf, continental shelves to the southwest, northwest, ...

that represented a

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 b ...

between the

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

and

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

plates during the

Paleogene The Paleogene ( ; British English, also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period, geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million yea ...

. The ridge extended from the

South Greenland Triple Junction The South Greenland Triple Junction was a geologic triple junction in the North Atlantic Ocean that divided the North American, Greenland and Eurasian plates. It existed during the Paleogene and consisted of the Mid-Labrador and Mid-Atlantic rid ...

in the southeast to the Davis Strait area in the northwest. Seafloor spreading along the Mid-Labrador Ridge discontinued about 40 million years ago when the mid-ocean ridge became essentially extinct. The Mid-Labrador Ridge is now mostly buried under sediment, exposed only as a northwesterly trend of

seamount A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor that does not reach to the water's surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abru ...

s in the southeastern part of the Labrador Basin.

References

Geology of Greenland Geology of Newfoundland and Labrador Underwater ridges of the Atlantic Ocean Cenozoic rifts and grabens Paleocene geology Eocene geology {{Tectonics-stub