Sea Floor Spreading Mid Ocean Ridge

They are the shallowest major features of the seafloor.

Sea floor spreading mid ocean ridge. The seafloor moves and carries continents with it. Seafloor spreading takes place at midocean ridges and produces basalt the rock that makes up the oceanic crust. Seafloor spreading is a process that occurs at mid ocean ridges where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. It is an underwater mountain range that forms when magma pushes up on the crust at a divergent boundary.

The mid ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created. As a general rule fast ridges have spreading opening rates of more than 90 mm year. The formation of the new crust is due to the rising of the molten material magma from the mantle by convection current. 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.

The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. 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. 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. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow.

Midocean ridges reach a typical summit elevation of 2 700 meters below sealevel. The mid atlantic ridge and east pacific rise are examples of midocean ridges. The oceanic crust is composed of rocks that move away from the ridge as new crust is being formed. Seafloor spreading is happening at b.

The process of sea floor spreading. 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. 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.

Molten rock pushes up from the asthenosphere and pushes the plates apart at the mid ocean r. Sea floor spreading answer key this is a mid ocean ridge. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics when oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere.