Sea Floor Spreading And Subduction Diagram

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.

Sea floor spreading and subduction diagram.

Oceanic crust thin parts of the earth s crust located under the oceans. Subduction is a geological process that takes place at convergent boundaries of tectonic plates where one plate moves under another and is forced to sink due to high gravitational potential energy into the mantle. 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. Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart.

Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. 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. Regions where this process occurs are known as subduction zones rates of subduction are typically measured in centimeters per year with the average rate of convergence being. Subduction and sea floor spreading are processes that could alter the size and form of the ocean.

Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. Due to this continuous seafloor spreading occurs and makes atlantic ocean floor to be connected to other continental crust making the ocean gets wider over the time. The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the earth s mantle. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates.

At subduction zones the edge of the denser plate subducts or slides beneath the less dense one. The purpose of this activity is to make a simple model that shows the evolution of oceanic crust through sea floor spreading and subduction. Subduction zone the area in which one part of the earth s crust a plate is pushed underneath another plate as the two plates collide. This report describes how to build a model of the outer 300 km 180 miles of the earth that can be used to develop a better understanding of the principal features of plate tectonics including sea floor spreading the pattern of magnetic stripes frozen into the sea floor transform faulting thrust faulting subduction and volcanism.

The creation of new sea floor at mid ocean spreading centers and its destruction in subduction zones is one of the many cycles that causes the earth to experience constant change. For instance the atlantic ocean is believed to be expanding because of its few trenches. In seafloor spreading magma moves from the asthenosphere to the crust.