Sea Floor Spreading Earth

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.

Sea floor spreading earth.

Seafloor spreading definition a process in which new ocean floor is created as molten material from the earth s mantle rises in margins between plates or ridges and spreads out. See also continental drift a veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis. Mantle convection is the slow churning motion of earth s mantle. Much of the rocky interior the mantle of our planet is hot enough to flow like a candy bar kept too long in one s pocket.

The age spreading rate and asymmetry at each grid node is determined by linear interpolation between adjacent seafloor isochrons in the direction of spreading. Seafloor spreading is the mechanism for wegener s drifting continents. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. 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.

Ages for ocean floor between the oldest identified magnetic anomalies and continental crust are interpolated by geological estimates of the ages of passive continental margin segments. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. 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. Convection currents also recycle lithospheric materials back to the mantle.

The mid ocean ridge is where the seafloor spreading occurs in which tectonic plates large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart. Seafloor spreading and other tectonic activity processes are the result of mantle convection. Seafloor spreading is a geologic process where there is a gradual addition of new oceanic crust in the ocean floor through a volcanic activity while moving the older rocks away from the mid oceanic ridge. Seafloor spreading our earth is a warm planet sailing through cold space.

This video goes over the process of sea floor spreading and the evidence that supports this theory.