The Sea Floor Spreading Hypothesis Is Supported By

Seafloor spreading brings them together.

The sea floor spreading hypothesis is supported by. 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 occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. First proposed in the early 1960s by the american geologist harry h. Seafloor spreading theory of lithospheric evolution that holds that the ocean floors are spreading outward from vast underwater ridges.

When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. Sea floor spreading is the phenomena of new sea floor being created through mid ocean ridges. Ocean basins get narrower as a result of seafloor spreading. Harry hess proposed the seafloor spreading hypothesis in 1960 published in 1962.

Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones known collectively as the mid ocean ridge system and spreads out laterally away from them. Hess its major tenets gave great support to the theory of continental drift continental drift geological theory that the relative positions of the continents on the earth s surface have. This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes. Wegener proposed that the continents themselves move which is untrue.

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. Harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. Sea floor spreading caused the break up of pangea which prompted wegener to add this in support of his continental drift theory. Ocean floor is created by the process of subduction.

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. The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones rather than magma pressure although there is typically. Geophysicist frederick john vine and the canadian. According to hess seafloor was created at mid oceanic ridges by the convection of the earth s mantle pushing and spreading the older crust away from the ridge.

It is the tectonic plates that move. The term spreading of the seafloor was introduced by geophysicist robert s. Subduction causes continents to move apart. To keep the earth s surface area constant the amount of seafloor spreading must equal the amount of subduction.