American geologist Bruce Heezer and oceanic cartographer Marie Tharp were researchers at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, New York. In the 1950s, they expedited with a crew across the Atlantic to gather data about the ocean floor from the ocean surface. The observations proved that there was in fact a chain of mountains, as high as halfway till the surface, under the ocean. They named it Mid-Atlantic Ridge, also known as MAR.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a mid-ocean ridge, is the longest underwater mountain range in the world. It was formed due to tectonic movements under the ocean. The range is only a part of the mid-oceanic ridge extending up to 65,000 km from the Arctic Ocean till the Atlantic Ocean. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge itself covers around 10,000 km and reaches as an elevation of around 2,300 m. The Romanche Trench – one of the deepest points in the Atlantic and about 7,700 m deep – lies in this range.
