Sea Floor Spreading And Mid Ocean Ridge

Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones known collectively as the mid ocean ridge system and spreads out laterally away from them.

Sea floor spreading and mid ocean ridge.

Scientists brought these observations together in the early 1960s to create the seafloor spreading hypothesis. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. In addition he found that the deepest parts of the oceans were very close to. This theory later became known as sea floor spreading.

The pattern of magnetic strips shows that the seafloor is expanding at mid ocean ridges. Which statement accurately describes how magnetic stripes in ocean rock provide evidence of seafloor spreading. Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. The mid ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created.

While mid ocean ridges are a submarine features in some places the mid ocean ridges in the world are all connected. The main geographical feature formed by the process of seafloor spreading are mid ocean ridges. The patterns reflect the creation and spreading of oceanic crust along the mid oceanic ridges. The ridge crest and its associated transform faults are the locus of nearly all shallow earthquakes occurring in mid ocean areas.

This idea played a pivotal role in the development of the theory of plate tectonics which revolutionized geologic thought during the last quarter of the 20th century. The mid atlantic ridge for instance separates the north american plate from the eurasian plate and the south american plate from the african plate the east pacific rise is a mid ocean ridge that runs through the eastern pacific ocean and separates the pacific plate from the north american. Role of the spreading. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

Basalt forming at the ridge crest picks up the existing magnetic polarity. Research in the global oceans. In this hypothesis hot buoyant mantle rises up a mid ocean ridge causing the ridge to rise upward figure below. The formation of the new crust is due to the rising of the molten material magma from the mantle by convection current.

The oceanic crust is composed of rocks that move away from the ridge as new crust is being formed. The rate at which new oceanic lithosphere is added to each tectonic plate on either side of a mid ocean ridge is the spreading half rate and is equal to half of the spreading rate. Usually these submarine mountain ranges have a valley running on their spine which is known as a rift and is about a mile in depth. Continued study of the mid ocean ridges is a major component of u s.

Discovery of the mid ocean ridges. These surveys revealed a series of invisible magnetic stripes of normal and reversed polarity in the sea floor like that shown in the figure below. Scientists discovered that new molten materials from inside earth create new. Hess discovered that the oceans were shallower in the middle and identified the presence of mid ocean ridges raised above the surrounding generally flat sea floor abyssal plain by as much as 1 5 km.