What happens at divergent plate boundaries?
1 Answer
May 4, 2016
In the oceans, new sea floor forms. On land, magma also spews out and continents are torn apart.
Explanation:
Divergent plate boundaries are places where the crust is being pulled apart by mantel convection cells. If these kind of boundaries occur in the oceans, like the Atlantic today, new fresh magma is brought to the surface and becomes new seafloor material - usually as basalt.
Divergent boundaries on land also bring up basaltic magma but they also break the continent up, much like what is happening today in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. See pic.
