Sea Floor Spreading Geography
Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor.
Sea floor spreading geography. The concept of seafloor spreading was put forward by h harry hess an american geologist. The process of sea floor spreading. He suggested that continents moved around the earth like giant rafts. Fellow scientists at the time thought the theory was ludicrous.
The oceanic crust is composed of rocks that move away from the ridge as new crust is being formed. 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 ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.
Plate tectonics theory convection currents and sea floor spreading. Alfred wegener a german meteorologist born in 1880 developed the idea of continental drift. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. World war ii gave scientists the tools to find the mechanism for continental drift that had eluded wegener.
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. The regions that hold the unique record of earth s magnetic field lie along the mid ocean ridges where the sea floor is spreading. Paleomagnetism led the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into theories of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics. Strong evidence of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.
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. The formation of the new crust is due to the rising of the molten material magma from the mantle by convection current. Further he claimed that continents would be pushed aside by the same forces that cause the ocean to grow. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow.