Sea Floor Spreading Evidence For Continental Drift

Whats people lookup in this blog.

Sea floor spreading evidence for continental drift.

Evidence of similar paleoclimates in belts across pangaean latitudes. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity. In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j. Alfred wegener a german meteorologist born in 1880 developed the idea of continental drift.

Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics. This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes. Fellow scientists at the time thought the theory was ludicrous. These plates float atop an underlying rock layer called the asthenosphere.

Harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. In 1963 fred vine and d h. He suggested that continents moved around the earth like giant rafts. Studies conducted with thermal probes for example indicate that the heat flow through bottom sediments is generally comparable to that through the continents except over the mid ocean ridges.

This evidence however was also used to support the theory of continental drift. Plate tectonics theory convection currents and sea floor spreading. Plates are composed of lithosphere about 100 km thick that float on the ductile asthenosphere. See also continental drift a veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis.

How did seafloor spreading provide evidence for continental drift. Sea floor spreading convection and seafloor spreading continental drift theory plate tectonics sea floor spreading origin of oceans and continents continental drift and seafloor spreading dive diser. Matthews used paleomagnetism to test the theory of seafloor spreading by studying paleomagnetic data from a portion of the midocean ridge system if the seafloor has spread laterally by the addition of new crust at the oceanic ridges there should be a relatively symmetrical pattern of magnetic orientation normal polarity reversed polarity normal polarity and. Which of the following lines of evidence for continental drift plate tectonics was found after wegener published his theory.

By combining the sea floor spreading theory with continental drift and information on global seismicity the new theory of plate tectonics became a coherent theory to explain crustal movements. Seafloor spreading evidence for continental drift. The matching of the distribution of similar fossils across oceans. Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift.

Supporters of continental drift originally theorized that the continents moved drifted through unmoving oceans. The theory maintains that the crust and uppermost mantle or lithosphere is segmented into a number of solid rigid slabs called lithospheric plates.