The Galapagos Spreading Center
By Akhil Jariwala
What it is
The Galapagos Spreading
Center is an example of a
divergent boundary, where
the sea floor comes
through the plate gap and
creates new sea floor .
What Cont’d
• Magma chambers
arise near the
separation of the
plates, creating mini
volcanoes. Called
magma plumes. As
the plates continue
to move, old
volcanoes are
withered down and
new ones come up.
Where it is
• Just south of the Cocos Plate
and north of the Nazca Plate.
While the Nazca plate tries
to befriend the SA plate to
make the Andes, poor little
Cocos is left behind, and in
his anger shoots out lava
where his friend once
touched him ever so dearly.
Thus, the Spread Center.
Hope you like my analogy!!!
When is it…???…
• The boundary is probably 90 million years
old. This is critical to the understanding of
life on the Galapagos Islands and how it
developed. The Galapagos Spreading
Center was over the Galapagos Mantle
Plume 5-years ago, but has since moved
north
Why is it?
• See Big Bang theory,
or the Bible’s
reference to Creation.
Other
• The Galapagos spreading center is made up
of 3 different faults. 2 Rift Faults, which are
like divergent faults, are separated by a
transform fault. Looks like this: (2 lines =
rift, 1 line = transform
Transform