Sea Floor Spreading And Plate Tectonics

By 1968 on the basis of these details and a variety of other evidence the theory of plate tectonics as it had become.

Sea floor spreading and plate tectonics.

Morgan later outlined the theory in 1968. As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading. Plate tectonics plate tectonics seafloor spreading. Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics.

Like the scientists before us we will now merge the ideas of continental drift and seafloor spreading into the theory of plate tectonics. 1 demonstration of the ruggedness and youth of the ocean floor. Plates are composed of lithosphere about 100 km thick that float on the ductile asthenosphere. Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart.

Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. In 1967 mckenzie and parker suggested the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. Seafloor spreading helps to explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics.

According to the theory of plate tectonics the earth s lithosphere is broken into distinct plates which are. 3 emergence of the seafloor spreading hypothesis and associated recycling of oceanic. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be. The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones rather than magma pressure although there is typically.

It is not just the continents that are drifting. The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the earth s mantle. 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. Plate tectonics it was from the continental drift theory convection current theory and the theory of seafloor spreading the theory of plate tectonics was formulated.

Theory of plate tectonics upsc ias. When the concept of seafloor spreading came along scientists recognized that it was the mechanism to explain how continents could move around earth s surface. Theory of plate tectonics. Plate tectonics 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.

At subduction zones the edge of the denser plate subducts or slides beneath the less dense one. 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.