Mighty hatful kitchen stove can be observe on every continent , yet the longest continuous chain of peaks is not locate on any of these seven landmasses . alternatively , the world’smost extensive rangelies at thebottom of the sea .
Known as themid - sea range , this absurdly lengthy mountain string traces the scheme of the Earth ’s architectonic home base and spreads around the globe in a pattern that is often equate to the seams on a baseball . With a total uninterrupted length of around 65,000 kilometers ( 40,390 miles ) , the mid - ocean range express joy at the puny defect of the world ’s recollective continental range , which happens to be theAndesand its 7,600 - kilometer ( 4,700 - mi ) span . Pathetic .
In the true , though , the mid - ocean kitchen stove has an unjust advantage as it is really made up of several separate submerged ridge system that exist on the boundaries of the various tectonic dental plate . It ’s at these frontiers that the platespush apart , appropriate magma to surge up and fill the gaps .
The Mid-ocean range system is a series of connected underwater mountain chains that criss-cross the planet. Image credit:NOAA via Wikimedia Commons
The result is a line of wad and vale that scars the seafloor . On average , the peaks of these various hero ridges rest some 2,500 meters ( 8,200 feet ) beneath the surface of the sea . Among the most famous of these is theMid - Atlantic Ridge , which runs right down the centre of the Atlantic Ocean , attain from the Arctic to the Antarctic .
Of naturally , because the world ’s plate tectonics are in contact with one another , the ridge that form between them are all connected , forming an unbroken serial publication of submerged scope that conjointly make up the mid - ocean range .
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