Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift.
Sea floor spreading different continental drift.
Continental drift and seafloor spreading are two natural occurring processes responsible for the generation of new fresh areas of the crust and the destruction of old crust.
Supporters of continental drift originally theorize d that the continents moved drifted through unmoving oceans.
In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j.
These plates float atop an underlying rock layer called the asthenosphere.
Seafloor spreading is the secondary cause and continental drift is the affect.
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 was about the tectonic plates diverging and pushing the continents away from the mid ocean ridges.
On the other hand the pacific ocean has more trenches that lead to more subduction of ocean crusts rather than the formation of the mid ocean ridge.
Tuzo said that earth s crust or lithosphere was divided into large rigid pieces called plates.
Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity.
Although you might take one step back and assign the primary cause to residual radioactive materials in the core and mantle.
The first truly detailed and comprehensive theory of continental drift was proposed in 1912 by alfred wegener a german meteorologist bringing together a large mass of geologic and paleontological data wegener postulated that throughout most of geologic time there was only one continent which he called pangea late in the triassic period which lasted from approximately 251 million to 199 6.
Continental drift is the gradual movement of continental plates over the earth s surface over time.
Plates are composed of lithosphere about 100 km thick that float on the ductile asthenosphere.
Keeping earth in shape.
Due to this continuous seafloor spreading occurs and makes atlantic ocean floor to be connected to other continental crust making the ocean gets wider over the time.
Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them.
Continental drift is a very similar process to seafloor spreading.
Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics.
How is seafloor spreading different from continental drift in the continental drift theory it was thought that the continents plowed through the ocean.