Sea Floor Spreading Science Project

Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

Sea floor spreading science project.

Click here if you are a student at snowflake heber or holbrook to access the susd5 student version of seafloor spreading assignment. Seafloor spreading is the mechanism for wegener s drifting continents. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them.

In this section we are going to take alfred wegener s thoughts a little further. The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. Convection currents within the mantle take the continents on a conveyor belt ride of oceanic crust that over millions of years takes them around the planet s surface. Let s explore another idea called seafloor spreading.

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. In this experiment you ll make a seafloor spreading model to learn more about how plate tectonics work and create mid ocean ridges. Sea floor spreading happens at places where plates are moving away from each other and where the liquid rock from the asthenosphere can come up to the lithosphere. Click here to view all details of this science project cached view 3rd party site description.

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. Illustrate sea floor spreading and subduction by building a model. 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. 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.