Sea Floor Spreading And Mid Ocean Ridge Simulation

Magnetic polarity stripes give clues to seafloor ages and the importance of mid ocean ridges in the creation of oceanic crust.

Sea floor spreading and mid ocean ridge simulation. Label these two lines with their age. The mid ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created. The formation of the new crust is due to the rising of the molten material magma from the mantle by convection current. 1 let s assume the oldest oceanic crust formed when pangaea started to split apart.

These surveys revealed a series of invisible magnetic stripes of normal and reversed polarity in the sea floor like that shown in the figure below. 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 seafloor moves and carries continents with it. Seafloor spreading processes create new oceanic crust at mid ocean ridges and destroy older crust at deep sea trenches.

Seafloor spreading takes place at midocean ridges and produces basalt the rock that makes up the oceanic crust. Basalt forming at the ridge crest picks up the existing magnetic polarity. The patterns reflect the creation and spreading of oceanic crust along the mid oceanic ridges. The process of sea floor spreading.

The mid atlantic ridge and east pacific rise are examples of midocean ridges. 200 million years old estimate the ages of at least 3 other pairs of lines and label them as well on your paper model. Midocean ridges reach a typical summit elevation of 2 700 meters below sealevel. The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate pull rather than magma pressure although there is typically significant magma activity at spreading ridges.

Seafloor spreading happens at the bottom of an ocean as tectonic plates move apart. At ridges in the middle of oceans new oceanic crust is created. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones known collectively as the mid ocean ridge system and spreads out laterally away from them. Fill in the blanks based on your seafloor spreading model.

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. Seafloor spreading simulation part i. Describe how sound waves are used to develop a map of the features of the seafloor. 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.