spreading center

[spred-ing sen-ter]

noun

Geology.

1. a linear zone in the seafloor along which magma rises and from which adjacent crustal plates are moving apart.

Word History and Origins

Origin of spreading center¹

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

Every plate-boundary spreading center is a potential colonization area.

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The zone is what seismologists call a “spreading center” with faults that slowly stretch the earth.

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The volcanic spreading center — more than 300 miles long — lies in a slanted line off the West Coast, from British Columbia to Oregon.

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Huybers and his colleagues are now working to tease out the ice age signal from another medium-rate spreading center, the Juan de Fuca Ridge, off the coast of the U.S.

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The study in Science was based on fresh ocean-floor data gathered by a Korean icebreaker ship during 2011 and 2013 surveys across the Australian-Antarctic ridge, a spreading center south of Tasmania.

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