Submarine Topography of the Pacific Ocean

Remove water from the sea bed, and this is the topography that appears. It is richer in relief than expected, and there are some unique topographic features. The red lights on the model indicate long, large-scale mountain ranges known as ocean ridges, while the blue lights indicate long, deep valleys called trenches. At the ocean ridges, magma comes out of the mantle, thereby creating new oceanic plates. These plates shift from 1 to 10 cm per year in a horizontal direction, and subducts from the trenches to beneath the continent. The red arrows on the model show both the direction and distance per year of the plate's movement.