Sea Floor Spreading And Magnetic Striping

Plate tectonics and reversals of the earth s magnetic field are responsible for the magnetic stripes found on the ocean floor.

Sea floor spreading and magnetic striping.

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. 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. Enjoy the videos and music you love upload original content and share it all with friends family and the world on youtube. 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 magnetic minerals are found in rocks. What two factors are involved in setting the width of a paleomagnetic stripe. Magnetic stripes formed during seafloor spreading in some locations spreading rates have been found to be asymmetric.

This is thought due to temperature gradients in the asthenosphere from mantle plumes near the spreading center. Seafloor spreading and magnetic striping rising magma assumes the polarity of earth s geomagnetic field before it solidifies into oceanic crust. The half rates differ on each side of the ridge crest by about five percent. 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.

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. At spreading centres this crust is separated into parallel bands of rock by successive waves of emergent magma. These two things were the magnetic striping on the ocean floor and the age of seafloor rocks.