Sea Floor Spreading And Plate Tectonic Evidence

Seafloor spreading is the mechanism behind this phenomenon.

Sea floor spreading and plate tectonic evidence.

By the use of the sonar hess was able to map the ocean floor and discovered the mid atlantic ridge mid. 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. Seafloor spreading as upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading. The stripes alternate between those with magnetic material orientated toward magnetic north and those oriented in the opposite direction.

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. Strong evidence of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. Theory of plate tectonics. 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.

The regions that hold the unique record of earth s magnetic field lie along the mid ocean ridges where the sea floor is spreading. Paleomagnetism led the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into theories of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics. Plate tectonics plate tectonics seafloor spreading. Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics.

Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart. Stripes of magnetic material in the seafloor provide strong evidence for tectonic theory. The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the earth s mantle. Like the scientists before us we will now merge the ideas of continental drift and seafloor spreading into the theory of plate tectonics.

Theory of plate tectonics the evidence among the many gaps in scientific knowledge at the time of alfred wegener was an understanding of the dynamics of the ocean floors. At subduction zones the edge of the denser plate subducts or slides beneath the less dense one. The theory maintains that the crust and uppermost mantle or lithosphere is segmented into a number of solid rigid slabs called lithospheric plates. As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading.

By the 1960s the theories of continental drift and sea floor spreading were supported by reliable scientific data and combined to develop modern day plate tectonic theory. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be.