Mid-ocean ridges do not form straight lines but are instead offset in many places by fracture zones, or transform faults. Fracture zones are thought to occur due to zones of weakness in the pre-existing continent before it was rifted apart. Most mid-ocean ridges are divided into hundreds of segments by fracture zones. Along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, fracture zones occur at an average interval of 55 kilometers (34 miles).
(the average) - the sum of all data values divided by the number of the data values. deviation. - the difference between a data value in a set and the mean of the set. - the mean (average) of all deviations in a set equals zero. absolute value. - the distance (a positive quantity) of any value on a number line from zero. - the sum of the absolute values of deviations on each side of the mean are equal. variability. - refers to how spread out (or clustered together) the values are in a data set. - high variablity means the data is spread out.
Standard deviation: It is the square root of mean/average of squared deviations of data point from mean i.e. we subtract the mean from each data point; take it's square value (which is again non-negative); sum it up and divide by the number of observations. Surely, standard deviation is a better & most commonly used measure of variation. For more details on the comparison between the two, please see Mean absolute deviation vs. standard deviation 19.5k Views Â· View Upvoters