Sea Floor Spreading Creating More Co2

This might consti tute a feedback wherein the increase in co2 production by ridge spreading would be compensated by seafloor weather ing accelerated by the added heat flow.

Sea floor spreading creating more co2. This theory focuses the control of co2 levels on plate tectonic processes. Will this warming of the ocean and the raising of ph offset the acidification of the ocean lowering of ph because more carbon dioxide. This theory focuses the control of co2 levels on plate tectonic processes. This allowed us to compute how much carbon dioxide is stored in any new chunk of crust created by seafloor spreading animation illustrating the changing co2 storage in ocean crust over the past.

As a result high spreading rates high atmospheric co2 levels and elevated seafloor weathering should occur at the same time. Seafloor spreading definition a process in which new ocean floor is created as molten material from the earth s mantle rises in margins between plates or ridges and spreads out. 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. 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.

Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. The seafloor spreading theory is one hypothesis introduced to suggest a mechanism of controlled co2 levels in the atmosphere causing the observed variations between warm co2 rich greenhouse intervals and cold co2 depleted global cooling intervals.

Both would lead to increased weathering. During plate tectonics carbon is cycled endlessly between the earth s. The survey data was used to create three dimensional relief maps of the ocean floor and by 1953 american oceanic cartographer marie tharp had created the first of several maps that revealed the presence of an underwater mountain range. As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor 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.

If so this will make seawater less able to hold carbon dioxide in solution which would raise the ph because ph is inversely proportional to co2 countering the main point of the article. During plate tectonics carbon is cycled endlessly between the earth s.