Sea Floor Spreading Different Continental Drift

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.

Sea floor spreading different continental drift.

Seafloor spreading is when molten material rises and cools down and makes new seafloor continental drift is the theory that the continents were once together and the big land mass is called. Continental drift is a very similar process to seafloor spreading. Tuzo said that earth s crust or lithosphere was divided into large rigid pieces called plates. Supporters of continental drift originally theorize d that the continents moved drifted through unmoving oceans.

On the other hand the pacific ocean has more trenches that lead to more subduction of ocean crusts rather than the formation of the mid ocean ridge. Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift. Due to this continuous seafloor spreading occurs and makes atlantic ocean floor to be connected to other continental crust making the ocean gets wider over the time. Seafloor spreading is the secondary cause and continental drift is the affect.

Plates are composed of lithosphere about 100 km thick that float on the ductile asthenosphere. Primary cause is convection currents in the mantle. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity. Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics.

These plates float atop an underlying rock layer called the asthenosphere. Continental drift is the gradual movement of continental plates over the earth s surface over time. 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. In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j.

The first truly detailed and comprehensive theory of continental drift was proposed in 1912 by alfred wegener a german meteorologist bringing together a large mass of geologic and paleontological data wegener postulated that throughout most of geologic time there was only one continent which he called pangea late in the triassic period which lasted from approximately 251 million to 199 6. Continental drift and seafloor spreading are two natural occurring processes responsible for the generation of new fresh areas of the crust and the destruction of old crust. Keeping earth in shape. Seafloor spreading was about the tectonic plates diverging and pushing the continents away from the mid ocean ridges.