Rift Valley
Depth: 3,520 m · Midnight Zone
Running down the middle of the ridge is a deep trench called the Rift Valley. Here two tectonic plates are pulling apart, and cooling lava constantly creates new seafloor. The Atlantic gets a few centimeters wider every year, roughly as fast as your fingernails grow.
For scientists
At slow-spreading ridges like the Atlantic the crust tears open and drops into a central trough (rift valley) that can be about 1 to 1.5 km deep. At fast-spreading ridges this trough is almost absent. The youngest seafloor on Earth forms in the rift, often only a few thousand years old.
Source: NOAA
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