Sea Floor Spreading Evidence Of Plate Tectonics

Strong evidence of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.

Sea floor spreading evidence of plate tectonics.

Seafloor spreading as upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading. At subduction zones the edge of the denser plate subducts or slides beneath the less dense one. As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be.

Evidence of sea floor spreading harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. The regions that hold the unique record of earth s magnetic field lie along the mid ocean ridges where the sea floor is spreading. 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.

His theory of sea floor spreading maintained that new basaltic oceanic crust forms at a midoceanic ridge and is slowly pushed away on both sides toward the continents as more new crust is produced. Seafloor spreading is the mechanism behind this phenomenon. By the 1950s geologists geophysicists seismologists oceanographers and physicists had accumulated a large body of data about the ocean floor and the underlying crust. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow.

The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the earth s mantle. The stripes alternate between those with magnetic material orientated toward magnetic north and those oriented in the opposite direction. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. Measurements indicate that new crust moves away from a ridge at.

Paleomagnetism led the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into theories of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics. 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. In the 1960s geologist harry hess proposed that the sea floor was moving outward from the midoceanic ridges. Stripes of magnetic material in the seafloor provide strong evidence for tectonic theory.

This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes. The rate at which new oceanic lithosphere is added to each tectonic plate on either side of a mid ocean ridge is the spreading half rate and is equal to half of the spreading rate.