What Is Ocean Floor Spreading

Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.

What is ocean floor spreading.

Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Look it up now. Seafloor spreading definition is the divergence at mid ocean ridges of the tectonic plates underlying the oceans that is due to upwelling from the earth s interior of magma which solidifies and adds to the spreading plates. The seafloor s permanent magnetic signatures showed that new ocean crust was created at the ridge crests and then spread outward in both directions.

The oceanic crust is composed of rocks that move away from the ridge as new crust is being formed. This spreading creates a successively younger ocean floor and the flow of material is thought to bring about the migration or drifting apart of the continents. The continents bordering the atlantic ocean for example are believed to be moving away from the mid atlantic ridge at a rate of 1 2 cm 0 4 0 8 inch per year thus increasing. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates.

The mid ocean ridge is the region where new oceanic crust is created. The youngest crust of the ocean floor can be found near the seafloor spreading centers or mid ocean ridges as the plates split apart magma rises from below the earth s surface to fill in the empty void. 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. 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.

The formation of the new crust is due to the rising of the molten material magma from the mantle by convection current. Seafloor spreading definition a process in which new ocean floor is created as molten material from the earth s mantle rises in margins between plates or ridges and spreads out. The stripes ran parallel to the mid ocean ridges and extended out hundreds of miles on either side of them.