Sea Floor Spreading Concept Map

Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor.

Sea floor spreading concept map.

Seafloor spreading is a key concept to the theory of continental drift. By the use of the sonar hess was able to map the ocean floor and discovered the mid atlantic ridge mid. According to this theory the floor of the ocean is moving or spreading away from ridges by repetitive magma intrusion that split and spread the older sea floor causing them to be moved away from the ridge in a nearly continuous horizontal position. The mid ocean ridge is where the seafloor spreading occurs in which tectonic plates large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart from each other.

This theory later became known as sea floor spreading. 2 9 how do sediment cores from the ocean floor support the concept of seafloor spreading. The continental drift and seafloor spreading concepts can be relatively joined together to explain why there is a shaking movements on earth s crust and upper mantle also know as earthquake the second circle at the concept map under continental drift is the tectonic evidences such as fold mountains and sedimentary basins. 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.

Seafloor spreading was proposed by an american geophysicist harry h. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading samples collected from the ocean floor show that the age of oceanic crust increases with distance from the spreading centre important evidence in favour of this process.

As you went deeper the sediment. 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. 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.

Newer oceanic floor was near the ridge crest. Seafloor spreading is what operates the system. 2 7 describe the relative motion along a transform plate boundary and locate several examples on a plate boundary map. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

Based on this week s readings and lectures construct a concept map that diagrams this geological process.