The Sea Floor Spreading Theory

Strong evidence of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.

The sea floor spreading theory. The regions that hold the unique record of earth s magnetic field lie along the mid ocean ridges where the sea floor is spreading. It leads to the formation of new material on the ridge. 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. Hess its major tenets gave great support to the theory of continental drift continental drift geological theory that the relative positions of the continents on the earth s surface have.

Paleomagnetism led the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into theories of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics. Sea floor spreading theory. 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. When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere.

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. Harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. Seafloor spreading theory of lithospheric evolution that holds that the ocean floors are spreading outward from vast underwater ridges. As per seafloor spreading theory the mid oceanic ridge is the region where at the crest of oceanic ridges through the rupture of the oceanic crust and the crack continuous new lava eruption thrusts into it consequently pushing the oceanic crust on either side.

Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. 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 motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones rather than magma pressure although there is typically. First proposed in the early 1960s by the american geologist harry h.

Seafloor spreading helps to explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. Evidence of sea floor spreading. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes.