Sea Floor Spreading National Geographic

Supporters of continental drift originally theorized that the continents moved drifted through unmoving oceans.

Sea floor spreading national geographic.

Virgin islands to see the seafloor and find out how fish and other sea life use the underwa. Plate tectonics also explains the stripes of rock on the seafloor with alternating magnetic properties. National geographic society jeanna sullivan national. April 21 2011 scientists use cameras and sonar near the u s.

This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. It was concluded that the sea floor is composed of different rocks according to ages and that they are positioned equally in opposite directions. This records that there is a constant movement and spreading of rocks on the ocean floor. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur.

The mid atlantic ridge for instance separates the north american plate from the eurasian plate and the south american plate from the african plate the east pacific rise is a mid ocean ridge that runs through the eastern pacific ocean and separates the pacific plate from the north american. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity. Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. As buoyant molten rock rises up from deep within earth it emerges from the space between spreading tectonic plates and hardens creating a ridge.

Keeping earth in shape seafloor spreading is just one part of plate.