This field gives the number of times the root nodes have split because they overflowed after an insertion. A root node split causes the index to grow by one level-a parent node must be created to point to the two "halves" of the overflowed root node. Therefore, two nodes are created-the parent node and the node for the second half of the root node. Increasing the number of tree levels means Oracle Rdb must search more index nodes to access a data row; this can result in additional I/O operations.