Sea Floor Spreading Continental Drift

Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity.

Sea floor spreading continental drift.

Its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid ocean ridges to be computed. Supporters of continental drift originally theorize d that the continents moved drifted through unmoving oceans. Seafloor spreading is caused by two plates moving apart. The evidence for seafloor spreading is that new crust is constantly forming at mid ocean ridges through volcanic activity and then gradually moves in both directions away from these ridges.

Seafloor spreading is one of the observations which has been used to seek to prove the continental drift theory. Continental drift is also caused by plate tectonics. Continental drift is a very similar process to seafloor spreading. Therefore we can conclude that continental drift is.

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 theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. Keeping earth in shape. In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j.

Seafloor spreading is a geologic process where there is a gradual addition of new oceanic crust in the ocean floor through a volcanic activity while moving the older rocks away from the mid oceanic ridge. The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones rather than magma pressure although there is typically significant magma activity at spreading ridges. When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. These plates float atop an underlying rock layer called the asthenosphere.

Continental drift is the gradual movement of continental plates over the earth s surface over time. The theory has caused a revolution in the way we think about the earth. Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics. 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.

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. This is caused by plate tectonics. Seafloor spreading helps to explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. The vine matthews morley hypothesis also known as the morley vine matthews hypothesis was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics.