Ocean Floor Spreading And Continental Drift

Tuzo said that earth s crust or lithosphere was divided into large rigid pieces called plates.

Ocean floor spreading and continental drift. Subduction and sea floor spreading are processes that could alter the size and form of the ocean. Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics. As the seafloor grows wider the continents on opposite sides of the ridge move away from each other. Continental drift large scale horizontal movement of continents relative to one another and to the ocean basins during one or more episodes of geologic time.

World war ii gave scientists the tools to find the mechanism for continental drift that had eluded wegener. The vine matthews morley hypothesis also known as the morley vine matthews hypothesis was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid ocean ridges to be computed. Wherever continents are bordered by deep sea trench systems as in the pacific ocean the ocean floor is plunged downward underthrusting the continents and ultimately reentering and dissolving in earth s mantle from which it had originated. Plates are composed of lithosphere about 100 km thick that float on the ductile asthenosphere.

Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity. 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. It states that the earth s oceanic crust acts as a recorder of reversals in the geomagnetic. This concept was an important precursor to the development of the theory of plate tectonics which incorporates it.

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 disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift. In the process of seafloor spreading molten rock rises from within the earth and adds new seafloor oceanic crust to the edges of the old seafloor spreading is most dynamic along giant underwater mountain ranges known as mid ocean ridges. In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j.

Maps and other data gathered during the war allowed scientists to develop the seafloor spreading hypothesis this hypothesis traces oceanic crust from its origin at a mid ocean ridge to its destruction at a deep sea trench and is the mechanism for continental drift.