Southwest Indian Ridge

Southwest Indian Ridge on the left

The Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) is a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the southwest Indian Ocean. It separates the African Plate to the north from the Antarctic Plate to the south.

The SWIR extends between the Rodrigues Triple Point in the southern Indian Ocean to the Bouvet Triple Junction in the south Atlantic. It formed shortly after the breakup of Gondwana during the Mesozoic Era[1] The SWIR is classified as an ultraslow spreading ridge with a current spreading rate of around 8 mm/yr, making it the second slowest in the world after the Gakkel Ridge. As with other slow spreading ridges, magma supply along the ridge is often low or intermittent, leading to the formation of oceanic core complexes that expose lower crustal plutonic rocks through tectonic unroofing along low-angle detachment faults.


It has been studied for a range of issues. [2][3][4][5]

References

  1. ↑ Norton, I. O., & Sclater, J. G. (1979). A model for the evolution of the Indian Ocean and the breakup of Gondwanaland. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (1978–2012), 84(B12), 6803-6830.
  2. ↑ JOHN G. SCLATER; C. G. A. HARRISON (1971), Elevation of Mid-ocean Ridges and the Evolution of the South-west Indian Ridge, Nature Publishing Group, retrieved 24 February 2015
  3. ↑ Ansorge, Isabelle Jane; Pakhomov, E. A; Kaehler, S; Lutjeharms, J. R. E; Durgadoo, J. V (2010-06-01), "Physical and biological coupling in eddies in the lee of the South-West Indian Ridge.(Report)", Polar Biology (Springer) 33 (6): 747–759, doi:10.1007/s00300-009-0752-9, ISSN 0722-4060
  4. ↑ Bruno Hamelin; Claude J. Allègre (1985), Large-scale regional units in the depleted upper mantle revealed by an isotope study of the South-West Indian Ridge, Nature Publishing Group, retrieved 24 February 2015
  5. ↑ Robinson, Paul T; Von Herzen, Richard P; Adamson, Andrew C; Becker, Keir; Bloomer, Sherman H; Cannat, Mathilde; Dick, Henry J.B; Emmermann, Rolf F.K; Gard, Gunilla; Goldberg, David; Hebert, Rejean; Hertogen, Jan G.H; Hoskins, Hartley; Iturrino, Gerardo; Kassenaar, J. Dirk C; Kempton, Pamela D (1988-05-12), "Plutonic rocks in fracture zones. (ocean drilling program in the Atlantis II fracture zone on the south-west Indian ridge)", Nature (Nature Publishing Group) 333 (6169): 115–116, doi:10.1038/333115a0, ISSN 0028-0836

Coordinates: 25°30′00″S 70°00′00″E / 25.5000°S 70.0000°E / -25.5000; 70.0000

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