Bread Tectonics

I love baking. I especially love making sourdough bread. Something about the slow process of growing the yeast, knitting the dough, the fermentation process, the incredible smell that fills the house while baking, and of course the taste and crunchiness of the crust.

As a geoscientist, I cannot but notice the similar morphology of sourdough bread crust and Mid-Ocean Ridge morphology of the Earth’s crust:

Bread (left) and Mid Ocean Ridge (right) morphology.

If you think about it, the dynamics are not completely different; In both cases there is pressure forming under the solidifying crust, forcing extension at the surface in order to make room for new upwelling material. In the bread’s case this material is unbaked dough and in the Earth’s crust case this is of course the molten magma of the asthenospheric mantle.

I find this cool!