The Carlsberg Ridge is the northern section of the

Central Indian Ridge The Central Indian Ridge (CIR) is a north–south-trending mid-ocean ridge in the western Indian Ocean. Geological setting The morphology of the CIR is characteristic of slow to intermediate ridges. The axial valley is 500–1000 m deep; ...

, a divergent

tectonic plate Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...

boundary between the

African Plate The African Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes much of the continent of Africa (except for its easternmost part) and the adjacent oceanic crust to the west and south. It is bounded by the North American Plate and South American Plate ...

and the

Indo-Australian Plate The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian an ...

, traversing the western regions of the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

. The ridge of which the Carlsberg Ridge is a part extends northward from a triple point junction near the island of

Rodrigues Rodrigues (french: Île Rodrigues, link=yes ; Creole: ) is a autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, about east of Mauritius. It is part of the Mascarene Islands, which include Mauritius and Réunion. R ...

(the

Rodrigues Triple Point The Rodrigues Triple Junction (RTJ), also known as the Central Indian ceanTriple Junction (CITJ) is a geologic triple junction in the southern Indian Ocean where three tectonic plates meet: the African Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate, and the An ...

) to a junction with the

Owen Fracture Zone The Owen Fracture Zone (OFZ), though misnamed a fracture zone, is a transform fault in the northwest Indian Ocean that separates the Arabian and African Plates from the Indian Plate. Extending north-northeast from where the Carlsberg Ridge meets ...

. The ridge started its northwards propagation in the late Maastrichtian and reached the incipient Arabian Sea in the Eocene. Then it continued to accrete basalt but did not propagate for nearly 30 Ma. Then, in the early Miocene it started to propagate westwards towards the Afar hot spot, opening the Gulf of Aden. The Carlsberg Ridge is seismically active, with a major

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

being recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey at 7.6 on the

moment magnitude scale The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pa ...

on July 15, 2003. The submarine ridge was discovered by the Danish research vessel Dana during the '' Carlsberg Foundation's Oceanographic Expedition around the world'' (1928–1930), better known as the '' 2nd Dana Expedition'', and named after the

Carlsberg Foundation Carlsberg Foundation ( da, Carlsbergfondet) was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in 1876, by allocating some of his shares in the Carlsberg Brewery to fund and operate the Carlsberg Laboratory and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace. ...

, which funded the entire expedition and subsequent analysis and publication of results.Wolff, Torben (1967). Danish Expeditions on the Seven Seas. Copenhagen: Rhodos.

Notes

External links

Structure & Evolution of the Carlsberg Ridge

Processing & presentation of multi-beam echosounder data on Carlsberg and Central Indian ridges
Underwater ridges of the Indian Ocean {{tectonics-stub