Sea Floor Spreading Diagram Trench

Learn vocabulary terms and more with flashcards games and other study tools.

Sea floor spreading diagram trench.

World war ii gave scientists the tools to find the mechanism for continental drift that had eluded wegener. Depth below seafloor is a vertical coordinate used in geology paleontology oceanography and petrology see ocean drilling. Start studying sea floor spreading 3 2. Oceanic trenches are a distinctive morphological feature of convergent plate boundaries along which lithospheric plates move towards each other at rates that vary from a few millimeters to over ten centimeters per year.

Due to this continuous seafloor spreading occurs and makes atlantic ocean floor to be connected to other continental crust making the ocean gets wider over the time. A model of sea floor spreading teacher s guide ellen p. What is the evidence for se floor spreading. Draw a diagram of the processes of sea floor spreading and subduction.

Label the trench mid ocean ridge oceanic crust continental crust and indicate with arrows the direction of sea floor spreading and subduction. The hadal zone which includes the oceanic trenches lies between 6 000 11 000 metres 20 000 36 000 ft and is the deepest oceanic zone. Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. Wherever continents are bordered by deep sea trench systems as in the pacific ocean the ocean floor is plunged downward underthrusting the continents and ultimately reentering and dissolving in earth s mantle from which it had originated.

Maps and other data gathered during the war allowed scientists to develop the seafloor spreading hypothesis this hypothesis traces oceanic crust from its origin at a mid ocean ridge to its destruction at a deep sea trench and is the mechanism for continental drift. Oceanic trenches are topographic depressions of the sea floor relatively narrow in width but very long. Over time new. Depth below seafloor.

These oceanographic features are the deepest parts of the ocean floor. Students will make a paper model illustrating the concept of sea floor spreading and the development of symmetrical magnetic stripes on either side of a mid ocean spreading center. For instance the atlantic ocean is believed to be expanding because of its few trenches. See also continental drift a veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis.

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.