Mathilde Cannat on Mid-Ocean Ridges

Oceanic plates are continually manufactured at mid-ocean spreading ridges. But exactly what processes go on at these ridges? It turns out that it depends on what type of ridge it is—fast-spreading or slow-spreading. And that our traditional view of vanishingly thin plate thickness at ridge axes is inaccurate. Mathilde Cannat describes our modern understanding of mid-ocean ridges and the observations that led us there.
Mathilde Cannat is a research director at the Institut de Physique du Globe of Paris. Her research on mid-ocean ridges has fundamentally changed our understanding of the geological processes that create new oceanic crust at these ridges.
Illustrations and full transcript: geologybites.com/mathilde-cannat