Discussion on Geology.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest ocean in the world after Pacific Ocean. It is comprised of one-fifth of the Earth’s surface and is located between the North and South American continents in the west, and European and African continents in the east (Broadus, 2020). It extends into the Arctic region in the north, and the Antarctic region in the south. The Atlantic Ocean is the first ocean to be crossed by a plane and a ship. It is also home to the infamous Bermuda Triangle which is believed to be responsible for the disappearance of planes and ships. Aside from these fascinating facts, the formation of the ocean is even more remarkable. The Atlantic Ocean is one of the youngest oceans in the world. This narrow s-shaped ocean was formed from the supercontinent Pangaea and has a remarkably interesting geological history. It was formed from its divergent boundaries whereas new crust was produced as tectonic plates pull away from each other (Kious, 2016). This means that the North American and Eurasian plates are growing further apart. The same thing is happening between the South American and African plates. This is made possible because the oceanic lithosphere is being raised by the convection current below it located in the asthenosphere. The asthenosphere is the composed of hot, molten rocks that get easily distorted. As the mantle rises, it brings with it these hot rocks and these hot rocks start to partially melt. Once the land opens, normally, the magma flows out and solidifies creating a new crust (King, n.d.). The process is just repeating as the newer magma pushes and lifts the solidified rock outwards. This kind of progression resulted to seafloor spreading and the creation of a submarine ridge (King, n.d.). The resulting ridge will be full of basaltic volcanoes and islands (Williams, 2017). The Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) is a result of this oceanic divergence. These underwater mountains are part of the longest mountain range in the world (NOAA, 2018). The MAR is approximately 10, 000 miles long and 900 miles wide. The peak stands at about 1.9 miles in height from the ocean floor (Williams, 2017). The existence of this underwater ridge was discovered only until the expedition of HMS Challenger in 1872 (Hsu, 1992). The ridge can be hundreds and thousands of years in the making while the initiation of rifting between these plates may have occurred 200 million years ago (Pitman, 1972). This means that the Atlantic Ocean as mentioned earlier, is one of the youngest oceans in the world, is because of the fact that it was not an ocean yet to begin with. If not because of these phenomena, the Atlantic Ocean as we know now would have been a merely small body of water. It is still constantly spreading up until now with a rate of about 2 cm per year. This means that the Atlantic Ocean is still getting bigger at about the same time it takes for a person’s fingernail to grow (Kenyon, n.d.).Give a response to the article.