Sea Floor Spreading Mid Atlantic Ridge

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

Sea floor spreading mid atlantic ridge.

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 south america and africa are moving apart by measuring the distance between the 2 continents in a direction parallel to oceanic fracture zones. Geologists can get a rough estimate of the spreading rate i e. The dates revealed that the atlantic ocean was opening by seafloor spreading from the mid atlantic ridge at a rate of about 0 02 metres per year.

He also found out that the temperature near to the mid atlantic ridge was warmer than the surface away from it. A mid ocean ridge mor is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics it typically has a depth of 2 600 meters 8 500 ft and rises about two kilometers above the deepest portion of an ocean basin this feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a divergent plate boundary the rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the crest of the mid ocean ridge and its. The south atlantic ocean formed by seafloor spreading at the mid atlantic ridge. Seafloor spreading was proposed by an american geophysicist harry h.

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.