EESA06H3 Lecture 3: Lecture 3 In Class Notes
Document Summary
Continents dome because of a plume of hot mantle and develops a triple junction (three major fraction that can be various km wide [each of these arms is called a rift ]) Along the floor of these rifts an area is usually going down called subsiding. The evolution of the triple junction leads to only one rift opening up to develop into an ocean, this leads to failed rifts . An ocean is described as having a mid-oceanic ridge (the red sea is an embryonic ocean that will eventually spread and grow) The east african rift formed by the east african plume, the horn of africa a. k. a. the somalian plate will break away from africa. Fissures are cracks in the earth"s crusts and basaltic magma wells up along these creating fissure eruptions and generates flood basalts that are lava flows that go for tens of km"s.