What Is Ocean Floor Spreading

The formation of the new crust is due to the rising of the molten material magma from the mantle by convection current.

What is ocean floor spreading.

The mid ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created. 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. Look it up now. 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.

The process of sea floor spreading. The stripes ran parallel to the mid ocean ridges and extended out hundreds of miles on either side of them. 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. 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.

The youngest crust of the ocean floor can be found near the seafloor spreading centers or mid ocean ridges as the plates split apart magma rises from below the earth s surface to fill in the empty void. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. The continents bordering the atlantic ocean for example are believed to be moving away from the mid atlantic ridge at a rate of 1 2 cm 0 4 0 8 inch per year thus increasing. This spreading creates a successively younger ocean floor and the flow of material is thought to bring about the migration or drifting apart of the continents.

The oceanic crust is composed of rocks that move away from the ridge as new crust is being formed. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. The seafloor s permanent magnetic signatures showed that new ocean crust was created at the ridge crests and then spread outward in both directions.