Compare Sea Floor Spreading With The Formation Of Mid Ocean Ridges

Seafloor spreading occurs along mid ocean ridges large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor.

Compare sea floor spreading with the formation of mid ocean ridges.

Because this cooling is a function of age slow spreading ridges such as the mid atlantic ridge are narrower than faster spreading ridges such as the east pacific rise. Further a correlation has been found between global spreading rates and the transgression and regression of ocean waters onto the continents. The mid atlantic ridge for instance separates the north american plate from the eurasian plate and the south american plate from the african plate. Explain how scientist know that earths magnetic poles have reversed many times during earth s history.

The production of new seafloor and oceanic lithosphere results from mantle upwelling in respo. 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. A mid ocean ridge is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. Mid ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries where new ocean floor is created as the earth s tectonic plates spread apart.

Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Seafloor spreading is a geologic process where there is a gradual addition of new oceanic crust in the ocean floor through a volcanic activity while moving the older rocks away from the mid oceanic ridge. Sea floor spreading is the process where two ocean plates move apart from each other. Mid ocean ridges are underwater mountain ranges that typically occur at the center of an area of sea floor spreading.

Most of the cooling takes place within 70 million or 80 million years by which time the ocean depth is about 5 to 5 5 km 3 1 to 3 5 miles. As the plates separate molten rock rises to the seafloor producing enormous volcanic eruptions of basalt. 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 plate the cocos plate the nazca plate and the antarctic plate. Yes mid ocean ridges an sea floor spreading are linked.

Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a divergent plate boundary. The rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the crest of the mid ocean ridge and its width in an ocean basin.