Sea Floor Spreading And Magnetic Striping

The paleomagnetic stripes on the seafloor for a pattern that looks like a bar code.

Sea floor spreading and magnetic striping. What two factors are involved in setting the width of a paleomagnetic stripe. Enjoy the videos and music you love upload original content and share it all with friends family and the world on youtube. Magnetic striping magnetic minerals are found in rocks. 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.

The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. 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. This is thought due to temperature gradients in the asthenosphere from mantle plumes near the spreading center. Plate tectonics and reversals of the earth s magnetic field are responsible for the magnetic stripes found on the ocean floor.

Magnetic stripes in the 20th century the magnetic survey was conducted in the mid ocean ridge in order to investigate evidence of sea floor spreading. These two things were the magnetic striping on the ocean floor and the age of seafloor rocks. 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. 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 half rates differ on each side of the ridge crest by about five percent. By using the magnetometer the magnetic polarity will be shown through a timescale that contains the normal and a reverse polarity. Magnetic stripes formed during seafloor spreading in some locations spreading rates have been found to be asymmetric.