Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow.
Sea floor spreading science definition.
Convection currents carry heat from the lower mantle and core to the lithosphere.
Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading.
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.
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.
Mantle convection is the slow churning motion of earth s mantle.
Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them.
Seafloor spreading and other tectonic activity processes are the result of mantle convection.
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.