Abstract.

Satellite altimetry continues to have an extraordinary impact on the Earth sciences. In May, 1992,the U.S. Navy declassified all GM data that lie south of 30 S. As the majority of the world's oceans are located in the Southern Hemisphere, we were able to view the fine-scale tectonic features of much of the world's seafloor for the first time. In this article we focus on the Southwest Indian ridge, along which seafloor spreading occurs between the African and Antarctic plates. The ridge axis and fracture zones are prominent in the gravity, and enable the mapping of the complicated opening history of the Indian Ocean.

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