Topic summary
Spreading center
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Seafloor spreading.
Spreading centers
Seafloor spreading occurs at spreading centers, distributed along the crests of mid-ocean ridges. Spreading centers end in transform faults or in overlapping spreading center offsets. A spreading center includes a seismically active plate boundary zone a few kilometers to tens of kilometers wide, a crustal accretion zone within the boundary zone where the ocean crust is youngest, and an instantaneous plate boundary – a line within the crustal accretion zone demarcating the two separating plates. Within the crustal accretion zone is a 1–2 km-wide neovolcanic zone where active volcanism occurs.