Sea Floor Spreading And Plate Tectonics

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 plate tectonics.

The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the earth s mantle. 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. As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading. Plates are composed of lithosphere about 100 km thick that float on the ductile asthenosphere.

Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart. Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. 2 confirmation of repeated reversals of the earth magnetic field in the geologic past.

The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones rather than magma pressure although there is typically. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. At subduction zones the edge of the denser plate subducts or slides beneath the less dense one. 1 demonstration of the ruggedness and youth of the ocean floor.

Theory of plate tectonics. Theory of plate tectonics upsc ias. Plate tectonics by combining the sea floor spreading theory with continental drift and information on global seismicity the new theory of plate tectonics became a coherent theory to explain crustal movements. Plate tectonics it was from the continental drift theory convection current theory and the theory of seafloor spreading the theory of plate tectonics was formulated.

In particular four major scientific developments spurred the formulation of the plate tectonics theory. By 1968 on the basis of these details and a variety of other evidence the theory of plate tectonics as it had become. Seafloor spreading helps to explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. In 1967 mckenzie and parker suggested the theory of plate tectonics.

According to the theory of plate tectonics the earth s lithosphere is broken into distinct plates which are. It is not just the continents that are drifting. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be. When the concept of seafloor spreading came along scientists recognized that it was the mechanism to explain how continents could move around earth s surface.

3 emergence of the seafloor spreading hypothesis and associated recycling of oceanic. Morgan later outlined the theory in 1968.