Sea Floor Spreading Activity

At ridges in the middle of oceans new oceanic crust is created.

Sea floor spreading activity. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones known collectively as the mid ocean ridge system and spreads out laterally away from them. Mantle convection is the slow churn ing motion of earth s mantle. The mid atlantic ocean has an area where two plates divergecreating the. Their crystals are pulled into alignment by the earth s magnetic field just like a compass needle is pulled towards magnetic north.

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. 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 and other tectonic activity processes are the result of mantle convection. The seafloor moves and carries continents with it.

As magma starts to harden into rock iron rich minerals solidify first. 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. Seafloor spreading happens at the bottom of an ocean as tectonic plates move apart. The plates move around and collide or spread apart creating new ocean crust or consuming crust and creating earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plate s large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart from each other. Some of the worksheets for this concept are sea floor spreading work sea floor spreading a model of seafloor spreading inside earth work magnetic reversals activity name date sea floor spreading l 1 2 3 5 4 ovr l lesson 3 seafloor profiling seafloor spreading and subduction.