Seafloor Spreading Getting Sluggish

New research examined the rate of seafloor spreading across numerous ridges over 19 million years and found that the rates overall and on average are slowing down globally.

IMAGE: Painting of the Mid-Ocean Ridge with rift axis by Heinrich Berann based on the scientific profiles of Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen (1977). CREDIT: AGU

Changing species dynamics and locations aren’t the only things happening in our ocean, but not every story is about climate change messing up our world. Sometimes, our world changes for reasons that have nothing to do with humanity but everything to do with the planet itself.

Take plate tectonics for example. We have zero control over this process, and it’s probably one of the biggest factors in shaping the world. Weirdly, it’s one of the more recent theories to be developed and accepted, with textbooks changing while I was in grade school. But we don’t understand everything about the process of plate tectonics, and now we even have something new to grasp — seafloor spreading is slowing down.

Seafloor spreading is just what it sounds like: two plates are moving apart in the ocean, causing the crustal rocks to thin and allowing the warmer, molten mantle to rise up. At places like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, this process creates new rocks, pushing the European and North American plates apart. Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, the pushing from…