Sea Floor Spreading Evidence Of Continental Drift

Sea floor spreading further supports the continental drift theory.

Sea floor spreading evidence of continental drift.

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. Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift. See also continental drift a veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis. For instance the atlantic ocean is believed to be expanding because of its few trenches.

Scientists agree that continents rest on rocks called tectonic plates which shift and move. Subduction and sea floor spreading are processes that could alter the size and form of the ocean. Another indication of continental drift is tectonic activity and seafloor spreading. He suggested that continents moved around the earth like giant rafts.

Due to this continuous seafloor spreading occurs and makes atlantic ocean floor to be connected to other continental crust making the ocean gets wider over the time. As molten rock rises from the earth it forms new crust between the plates. Tuzo said that earth s crust or lithosphere was divided into large rigid pieces called plates. Alfred wegener a german meteorologist born in 1880 developed the idea of continental drift.

The theory maintains that the crust and uppermost mantle or lithosphere is segmented into a number of solid rigid slabs called lithospheric plates. He put together the evidence of ancient glaciations and the distribution of fossil to formulate a theory that the continents have moved over the. Wherever continents are bordered by deep sea trench systems as in the pacific ocean the ocean floor is plunged downward underthrusting the continents and ultimately reentering and dissolving in earth s mantle from which it had originated. Once we got data from the sea floor it beca.

When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity. Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics. In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j.

Plate tectonics theory convection currents and sea floor spreading. Continental drift was the term applied when there was no firm information about processes on the sea floor. Continental drift sea floor spreading and plate tectonics plate tectonics is a theory developed in the late 1960s to explain how the outer layers of the. Besides the continents had to be the key parts because we live on them so they re important.

Fellow scientists at the time thought the theory was ludicrous.