Sea Floor Spreading Report

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.

Sea floor spreading report.

Geological survey editorial standards. He suggested that new sea floor forms at the oceanic ridges and spread outwards from the line of origin. Sea floor spreading occurs at the mid ocean ridge where two plates are moving away from each other. According to the theory of plate tectonics from the greek tekto builder the earth s crust is broken into many slowly moving plates.

The concept of seafloor spreading was put forward by h harry hess an american geologist. The seafloor moves and carries continents with it. Any use of trade firm or product names is for descriptive purposes only. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them.

This report describes how to build a model of the outer 300 km 180 miles of the earth that can be used to develop a better understanding of the principal features of plate tectonics including sea floor spreading the pattern of magnetic stripes frozen into the sea floor transform faulting thrust faulting subduction and volcanism. Seafloor spreading happens at the bottom of an ocean as tectonic plates move apart. The mid ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created. Sea floor spreading powerpoint 1.

Open file report 95 573 this report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with u s. The mid ocean ridge curves like the seams of a baseball along the sea floor extending into all of earth s oceans. Mapping the mid ocean ridge the east pacific rise is just one part of the mid ocean ridge the longest chain of mountains in the world. Further he claimed that continents would be pushed aside by the same forces that cause the ocean to grow.

The process of sea floor spreading. At ridges in the middle of oceans new oceanic crust is created. 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.

Sea floor spreading. Most of the mountains in the mid ocean ridge lie hidden under hundreds of meters of. Sea floor spreading a computer animation and paper model by tau rho alpha john p. Galloway and mark v.

The process of seafloor spreading leads to the formation of numerous geographical features which can be terrestrial sub terrestrial or marine features. 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. Here magma rises up from. Seafloor spreading is credited for the formation of the red sea as a result of the movement of the arabian and african tectonic plates away from each other.