Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
Scale: 1 pixel = 15 km. 10-degree grid; Transverse Mercator Projection, Center 30W
The Atlantic Ocean is the type example of a symmetrical spreading ocean, and the North Atlantic is the best example of two plates spreading around a pole of rotation. All motions on a sphere can be represented as rotation around a pole, but for most plate pairs, the mutual pole of rotation is far away and often several plates away. The Eurasian and North American Plates, in contrast, rotate around a pole in northeastern Siberia on the Eurasian Plate, and the plate boundary changes from spreading to compressional near the pole.
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Created 11 April 2014, Last Update 19 January 2020