Sea Floor Spreading Equation

Activity ii see teaching notes and tips below is a follow up activity that has students use excel to graphically compare the model predictions to observations from several north atlantic cross sections.

Sea floor spreading equation.

Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. 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. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

In 1912 when alfred wegener proposed that the continents had once been joined together and had split apart the biggest weakness in his hypothesis was the. 1cm yr to 10 cm yr. R d t or r 9 5 10 7 cm 6 5 10 7 years 1 46 cm yr. The use of the equation relating ocean floor depth to sea floor spreading rate and distance from spreading center provides a geoscience context.

The use of the equation relating ocean floor depth to sea floor spreading rate and distance from spreading center provides a geoscience context. Activity ii see teaching notes and tips below is a follow up activity that has students use excel to graphically compare the model predictions to observations from several north atlantic cross sections. 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.