Seafloor Spreading Can Explain Magnetic Stripes Of The Ocean Floor

Evidence of sea floor spreading.

Seafloor spreading can explain magnetic stripes of the ocean floor. The discovery of magnetic stripes on the seafloor in the 1950s validated the plate tectonics theory for the geological community. That is the time it takes for new rock to form at the mid ocean ridge move atoss the ocean and sink into a trench. Magnetic polarity stripes give clues to seafloor ages and the importance of mid ocean ridges in the creation of oceanic crust. Eruptions of molten material magnetic stripes in the rock of the ocean floor and the ages of the rocks themselves.

Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Because of these processes the ocean floor is renewed about every 200 million years. When the earth s magnetic field reverses a new stripe with the new polarity begins. This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes.

Harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. The earth s magnetic field reverses in a regular pattern every few hundred thousand years. Basalt the once molten rock that makes up most new oceanic crust is a fairly magnetic substance and scientists began using magnetometers to measure the magnetism of the ocean floor in the 1950s what they discovered was that the magnetism of the ocean floor around. The theory of plate tectonics states that the lithosphere which is the earth s outer layer is divided up into a dozens of irregularly shaped plates.

The process of subduction and sea floor spreading can change the size and shape of the oceans. Magnetic striping magnetic minerals are found in rocks. 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. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

Seafloor spreading processes create new oceanic crust at mid ocean ridges and destroy older crust at deep sea trenches. These two things were the magnetic striping on the ocean floor and the age of seafloor rocks. This evidence led scientists to look again at wegener s hypothesis of continental drift. Several types of evidence supported hess s theory of sea floor spreading.

Evidence for sea floor spreading. Such magnetic patterns led to recognition of the occurrence of sea floor spreading and they remain some of the strongest evidence for the theory of plate tectonics. The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century.