Sea Floor Spreading And Magnetic Striping

Basalt the once molten rock that makes up most new oceanic crust is a fairly magnetic substance and scientists began using magnetometer s to measure the magnetism of the ocean floor in the 1950s.

Sea floor spreading and magnetic striping.

At spreading centres this crust is separated into parallel bands of rock by successive waves of emergent magma. The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. Magnetic striping and polar reversals beginning in the 1950s scientists using magnetic instruments magnetometers adapted from airborne devices developed during world war ii to detect submarines began recognizing odd magnetic variations across the ocean floor. What kind of pattern makes it easiest to identify the age of a particular patch of seafloor where the pattern include many stripes or few stripes over the same width.

The half rates differ on each side of the ridge crest by about five percent. Enjoy the videos and music you love upload original content and share it all with friends family and the world on youtube. Magnetic stripes in the 20th century the magnetic survey was conducted in the mid ocean ridge in order to investigate evidence of sea floor spreading. Magnetic striping magnetic minerals are found in rocks.

Seafloor spreading and magnetic striping rising magma assumes the polarity of earth s geomagnetic field before it solidifies into oceanic crust. These two things were the magnetic striping on the ocean floor and the age of seafloor rocks. By using the magnetometer the magnetic polarity will be shown through a timescale that contains the normal and a reverse polarity. When magma flows out of a mid ocean ridge small magnetic minerals in the magma align themselves to point in the direction of the earth s current magnetic north.

The paleomagnetic stripes on the seafloor for a pattern that looks like a bar code. Magnetic striping of the sea floor after mid ocean ridges and trenches were discovered more evidence was discovered that helped to support the theory that the continents had moved around. Plate tectonics and reversals of the earth s magnetic field are responsible for the magnetic stripes found on the ocean floor.