Sea Floor Spreading Occurs In Places Where Two Plates Are

Seafloor spreading was proposed by an american geophysicist harry h.

Sea floor spreading occurs in places where two plates are.

Picture two convection cells side by side in the mantle similar to the illustration in figure 3. As the plates divide magma comes up through the crack and cools to form new sea floor. If seafloor spreading drives the plates what drives seafloor spreading. In locations where two plates move apart at mid ocean ridges new seafloor is continually formed during seafloor spreading.

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. The mid ocean ridge is where the seafloor spreading occurs in which tectonic plates large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart from each other. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. 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 the lithosphere the ocean crust to become less dense ductile and brittle and therefore rise above the surrounding crust to form a submarine mountain.

The farther away the floor is from. Seafloor spreading is a process that occurs at mid ocean ridges. By the use of the sonar hess was able to map the ocean floor and discovered the mid atlantic ridge mid. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them.

Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. This process occurs when two plates moving in opposite directions create a mid ocean ridge allowing magma and lava to well up between them creating new sea bed. 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. Hot mantle from the two adjacent cells rises at the ridge axis creating new ocean crust.

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. In these ridges new crust is formed through volcanic activity and thus expanding the seafloor. Seafloor spreading occurs when two tectonic plates move further away from each at mid ocean ridges.