Sea Floor Spreading Definition

Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow.

Sea floor spreading definition. As the continents move apart whole new oceans. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. Wherever the sea floor is spreading the edges move apart while the magma in the middle hardens. 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.

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. In the theory of plate tectonics the process by which new oceanic crust is formed by the convective upwelling of magma at mid ocean ridges resulting in. Seafloor spreading definition is the divergence at mid ocean ridges of the tectonic plates underlying the oceans that is due to upwelling from the earth s interior of magma which solidifies and adds to the spreading plates. 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.