How do you explain seafloor spreading?
How do you explain seafloor spreading?
Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—large slabs of Earth’s lithosphere—split apart from each other.
- Seafloor spreading and other tectonic activity processes are the result of mantle convection.
- Eventually, the crust cracks.
- Seafloor spreading is not consistent at all mid-ocean ridges.
What are the 4 steps of seafloor spreading?
Terms in this set (7)
- Magma comes out of the rift valley.
- Magma cools to rock and hardens.
- Rock is pushed away as new rock is formed at MOR.
- Oceanic crust and continental crust meet at the trench.
- Oceanic crust bends down under the continental crust.
- Gravity pulls rock towards mantle.
- Rock melts to mantle.
What are the three types of seafloor spreading?
There are three types of plate-plate interactions based upon relative motion: convergent, where plates collide, divergent, where plates separate, and transform motion, where plates simply slide past each other.
What’s the first step of seafloor spreading?
1. A long crack in the oceanic crust forms at a mid ocean ridge. 2. Molten material rises and erupts along the ridge.
What is seafloor spreading kid definition?
Seafloor spreading happens at the bottom of an ocean as tectonic plates move apart. It forms new crust as the plates move away from each other. The new crust then slowly moves away from the ridge. It is a place of earthquakes and volcanos. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in plate tectonics.
How old is the seafloor?
The oldest seafloor has been radiometrically dated to only about 200 million years (Duxbury et al. 2005:114), whereas continental rocks have been dated to four billion years, and the earth is thought to be about 4.6 billion years old (Dalrymple 2004).
What is the second step in the process of seafloor spreading?
What are three pieces of evidence for seafloor spreading?
What three types of evidence provide support for the theory of sea-floor spreading? Evidence from molten material, magnetic strips and drilling samples support the theory of sea-floor spreading.
Who proposed the seafloor spreading?
Harry Hess
Harry Hess: One of the Discoverers of Seafloor Spreading.
What is the history of seafloor spreading?
The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed by the American geophysicist Harry H. Hess in 1960. This spreading creates a successively younger ocean floor, and the flow of material is thought to bring about the migration, or drifting apart, of the continents.
What are the steps of seafloor spreading?
Sea-floor spreading is the process in which the ocean floor is extended when two plates move apart. As the plates move apart, the rocks break and form a crack between the plates. Earthquakes occur along the plate boundary. Magma rises through the cracks and seeps out onto the ocean floor like a long,…
What are some examples of seafloor spreading?
Seafloor spreading takes place at midocean ridges and produces basalt , the rock that makes up the oceanic crust. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and East Pacific Rise are examples of midocean ridges.
What are facts about seafloor spreading?
Molten material. Hess’s discovery on the warmer temperature near the mid-Atlantic ridge when he began the ocean mapping,led to his evidence about the molten material underneath the ocean.
What is an example of sea floor spreading?
New geographic features can be created through seafloor spreading. The Red Sea, for example, was created as the African plate and the Arabian plate tore away from each other. Today, only the Sinai Peninsula connects the Middle East (Asia) with North Africa.