what are the steps in the process of sea floor spreading

What Are The Steps In The Process Of Seafloor Spreading?

1. A long crack in the oceanic crust forms at a mid ocean ridge.
2. Molten material rises and erupts along the ridge.
3. Older rock moves outward on both sides of the ridge.
4. Molten material cools and forms a strip of solid rock in the centre of the ridge.

Full Answer

What are the steps in the process of seafloor spreading?

What are the steps in the process of sea floor spreading?

• Magma comes out of the rift valley.
• Magma cools to rock and hardens.
• Rock is pushed away as new rock is formed at MOR.
• Oceanic crust and continental crust meet at the trench.
• Oceanic crust bends down under the continental crust.
• Gravity pulls rock towards mantle.
• Rock melts to mantle.

What does the process of sea floor spreading entail?

What does sea floor spreading mean? Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—large slabs of Earth’s lithosphere—split apart from each other. Convection currents also “recycle” lithospheric materials back to the mantle. Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries.

How would you describe the process of seafloor spreading?

What Happens During the Process of Seafloor Spreading?

• History. Scientists originally believed that drifting was an occurrence exclusive to continents through continental drifts.
• Geographic Features. The process of seafloor spreading leads to the formation of numerous geographical features which can be terrestrial, sub-terrestrial, or marine features.
• Mid-Ocean Ridges. ...

How does sea floor spreading create a new ocean floor?

Seafloor Spreading is the usual process at work at divergent plate boundaries, leading to the creation of new ocean floor. As two tectonic plates slowly separate, molten material rises up from within the mantle to fill the opening. In this way the rugged volcanic landscape of a mid-ocean ridge is created along the plate boundary.

What are the steps that lead to sea floor spreading?

Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle's convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor. Eventually, the crust cracks.

What are the 3 pieces of evidence that support sea floor spreading?

Evidence of Sea Floor SpreadingMolten material. Hess's discovery on the warmer temperature near the mid-Atlantic ridge when he began the ocean mapping, led to his evidence about the molten material underneath the ocean. ... Seafloor drill. ... Radiometric age dating and fossil ages. ... Magnetic stripes.

Which is the first step in the seafloor spreading process quizlet?

Which is the first step in the seafloor spreading process? A crack forms in oceanic crust.

What is the importance of seafloor spreading?

Seafloor spreading is the mechanism by which new oceanic lithosphere is created at and moves away from divergent plate boundaries. The seafloor spreading hypothesis led to one of the most important paradigm shifts in the history of the Earth sciences, the plate tectonics scientific revolution.

What are the key surface features produced by sea floor spreading?

Midocean ridges, transform faults and fracture zones are the key surface features produced by seafloor spreading. In detail, midocean ridges are made up of short offset segments. The curved linear features running perpendicular to midocean ridges are fracture zones and transform faults.

What is the process of seafloor spreading quizlet?

What is the process of sea-floor spreading? In sea-floor spreading, the sea floor spreads apart along both sides of a mid-ocean ridge as new crust is added. As a result, the ocean floors move like conveyor belts, carrying the continents along with them.

What is seafloor spreading quizlet?

Seafloor Spreading. The process by which molten materials add new oceanic crust to the ocean floor. Deep Ocean Trench. A deep valley along the ocean floor beneath which oceanic crust slowly sinks toward the mantle.

What causes seafloor spreading quizlet?

During sea-floor spreading, magma erupts along a mid-ocean ridge to form new oceanic lithosphere. The floor then moves away from the ridge, often toward a trench at the edge of the ocean basin. List the evidence for sea-flooring spreading.

Which is 1 piece of evidence of seafloor spreading?

One piece of evidence of seafloor spreading is a mid-ocean ridge. Explanation: The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mountain system formed by plate tectonics on the seafloor. It is typically about 2,600 meters deep, about two kilometers above the deepest part of the basin.

What evidence was presented by geologists in the 1960s that sea floor spreading actually takes place?

He published his theory in History of Ocean Basins (1962), and it came to be called “seafloor spreading.” In the early 1960s, dating of ocean-core samples showed that the ocean floor was younger at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge but progressively older in either direction, confirming the reality of seafloor spreading.

What evidence helped give strong support for the hypothesis of seafloor spreading at mid-ocean ridges?

This hypothesis was supported by several lines of evidence: (1) at or near the crest of the ridge, the rocks are very young, and they become progressively older away from the ridge crest; (2) the youngest rocks at the ridge crest always have present-day (normal) polarity; and (3) stripes of rock parallel to the ridge ...

What structures on the ocean floor provide evidence of plate tectonics?

These large structures include deep trenches and long ridges where new material is added to the seafloor. These features can be successfully modeled with plate tectonics. The dramatically deep trenches in the ocean floor can be modeled with convergent boundaries of plates.

How did the seafloor spread?

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. The movement of these two tectonic plates is still ongoing, albeit at a slow pace, and geologists believe that after millions of years, Africa and Asia will completely be separated at the Suez Peninsula, causing the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to merge. The Niger Delta is believed to have been formed through seafloor spreading, as South America, which was originally merged with Africa at Africa’s western coastline, broke off and moved westwards to its current position. As the ocean crust moves against the continental crust, the boundary between the two forms an active plate margin which is highly unstable, and the instability causes the active plate margin as the center of earthquakes and volcanic activity. An example of this geographical feature is the Pacific “Ring of Fire” which has numerous active volcanoes and the epicenter of seismic activity.

What is the cause of the spreading of the seafloor?

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.

How does convection affect the seafloor?

Convection currents transfer heat from the core and mantle of the earth up to the lithosphere, and also carry rocks from the lithosphere deep to the mantle. Seafloor spreading takes place at the boundaries of divergent plates whereby, as the divergent tectonic plates move away from each other, hot convectional currents from the mantle cause ...

What is Hess' theory of seafloor spreading?

Another study which supports Hess’s theory of seafloor spreading is one who analyzed the age of ocean crust rocks and compared them with rocks which make up the continental crust. The study established that rocks making up the ocean crust were not more than 200 million years in age, making them younger compared to continental crust rocks which have a maximum age of 3 billion years. Additionally, the researchers established that the sediment cover gradually thinned near a mid-ocean ridge.

What is the layer of the ocean crust made of?

In most cases, the brittle lithosphere cracks, allowing hot magma pushed by the convectional currents to spill onto the ocean crust forming a new layer of the ocean crust made up of igneous rock.

What are the main geographical features formed by the process of seafloor spreading?

The main geographical feature formed by the process of seafloor spreading are mid-ocean ridges. Usually, these submarine mountain ranges have a valley running on their spine which is known as a rift and is about a mile in depth. While mid-ocean ridges are a submarine features, in some places, the Mid-ocean ridges in the world are all connected ...

What is the mid ocean ridge?

The mid-ocean ridge separates the Antarctic Plate from the Australian Plate. Other mid-ocean ridges in the world include The Louisville Ridge, The Chile Rise, the East Scotia Rise, the Central Indian Ridge, the Southwest Indian Ridge, and the Gakkel Ridge, among others.