Sea Floor Spreading Evidence From Molten Material

The mid ocean ridge curves like the seams of a baseball along the sea floor extending into all of earth s oceans.

Sea floor spreading evidence from molten material.

The ocean ridge was thermally expanded and consequently higher than the ocean floor further away. Evidence from molten material. What is the evidence for sea floor spreading. This evidence also led sci entists to look again at wegener s theory of continental drift.

This evidence led scientists to look again at wegener s hypothesis of continental drift. As the molten material cools it forms a strip of solid rock in the center of the ridge. Evidence of sea floor spreading harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. This process called sea floor spreading continually adds new material to the ocean floor.

A veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis. The anomalously high values are considered to reflect the intrusion of molten material near the crests of the ridges. Mapping the mid ocean ridge the east pacific rise is just one part of the mid ocean ridge the longest chain of mountains in the world. Most of the mountains in the mid ocean ridge lie hidden under hundreds of meters of.

Evidence of sea floor spreading harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. Evidence for sea floor spreading several types of evidence supported hess s theory of sea floor spreading. Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart. Sea floor spreading powerpoint 1.

At subduction zones the edge of the denser plate subducts or slides beneath the less dense one. Eruptions of molten material magnetic stripes in the rock of the ocean floor and the ages of the rocks themselves. The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the earth s mantle. This created new seafloor which then spread away from the ridge in both directions.

This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes. Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. Then more molten material splits apart the strip of solid rock that formed before pushing it aside. Hess envisaged that oceans grew from their centres with molten material basalt oozing up from the earth s mantle along the mid ocean ridges.

Several types of evidence supported hess s theory of sea floor spreading. 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 where at some sites the heat flow measures three to four times the normal value.