The Seafloor Spreading

Seafloor spreading is a part of plate tectonics.

The seafloor spreading. The process begins when the crust is heated from beneath by upwelling in the mantle sometimes called a mantle plume. In this lesson you will learn about this important. Seafloor spreading and other tectonic activity processes are the result of mantle convection. Its discovery provided a mechanism for continental drift that alfred wegener could not explain.

The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones rather than magma pressure although there is typically significant magma activity at spreading ridges. The seafloor s permanent magnetic signatures showed that new ocean crust was created at the ridge crests and then spread outward in both directions. Mantle convection is the slow churn ing motion of earth s mantle. Seafloor spreading is a constant geologic phenomenon and a primary driver of continental drift.

Convection currents within the mantle take the continents on a conveyor belt ride of oceanic crust that over millions of years takes them around the planet s surface. What happens to old oceanic crust as new molten material rises from the mantle. The new material splits apart the old material and pushes it outward from the ridge. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics.

The breakup of pangaea by seafloor spreading is seen in this animation. Subduction takes place at. The mid ocean ridge is where the seafloor spreading occurs in which tectonic plates large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart from each other. Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plate s large slabs of earth s lithosphere split apart from each other.

This creates a three armed rift called a triple junction usually with each rift at a 120 angle to the rest. In sea floor spreading new crust is added at a. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones known collectively as the mid ocean ridge system and spreads out laterally away from them. 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.

Seafloor spreading is the mechanism for wegener s drifting continents. 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.