Along What Feature Of The Ocean Floor Does Sea-Floor Spreading Begin?

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Along What Feature Of The Ocean Floor Does Sea-floor Spreading Begin??

Sea floor spreading begins at the mid ocean ridge which forms a crack in the oceanic crust. This allows molten material to rise and form new rock. At the same time older rock move outwards and onto the sides of the ridge. the process by which ocean floor sinks beneath a deep ocean trench and back into the mantle.

Which is the first step in the sea floor spreading process?

1. A long crack in the oceanic crust forms at a mid ocean ridge. 2. Molten material rises and erupts along the ridge.

What features of the ocean are explained by sea floor spreading?

Seafloor spreading processes create new oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges and destroy older crust at deep sea trenches.

Which feature would you find at an area of sea floor spreading?

Midocean ridges transform faults and fracture zones are the key surface features produced by seafloor spreading.

What causes seafloor spreading?

Seafloor spreading creates new oceanic crust at a mid-ocean ridge. When this new material reaches the end of the plate and comes into contact with another plate whether continental or not a convergent or a transform boundary will occur.

What are the physical features of the ocean?

Features of the ocean include the continental shelf slope and rise. The ocean floor is called the abyssal plain. Below the ocean floor there are a few small deeper areas called ocean trenches. Features rising up from the ocean floor include seamounts volcanic islands and the mid-oceanic ridges and rises.

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Which is evidence of the process of sea floor spreading *?

Seismic studies. More proof for sea floor spreading comes from seismic studies indicating that earthquakes occur along the rift valley of a midoceanic ridge and the cross‐cutting fractures that offset it.

What are the most prominent features on the ocean floor?

Individually ocean ridges are the largest features in ocean basins. Collectively the oceanic ridge system is the most prominent feature on Earth’s surface after the continents and the ocean basins themselves.

Which feature of the ocean floor includes its deepest parts?

The deepest parts of the ocean are within the subduction trenches and the deepest of these is the Marianas Trench in the southwestern Pacific (near Guam) at 11 000 m (Figure 18.5).

How do ocean floor features support the theory of plate tectonics?

New crust can be observed being formed on the sea floor ridges. … These observations support the idea that the plates are spreading apart along the ocean ridges. Matching magnetic lines of reversal along both sides of the ocean ridge also lends support to the theory of sea floor spreading.

What is the feature on the ocean floor at C?

The feature on the ocean floor at point C is called a? Deep-ocean trench. The process that continually adds new material to the ocean floor is called? Sea-floor spreading.

What is the bottom of the sea?

The seabed (also known as the seafloor sea floor ocean floor and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as ‘seabeds’.

What is the sea floor spreading theory?

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.

Where does sea floor spreading occur?

Seafloor spreading occurs along mid-ocean ridges—large mountain ranges rising from the ocean floor. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge for instance separates the North American plate from the Eurasian plate and the South American plate from the African plate.

What happens when the sea floor spreads?

Sea-floor spreading is what happens at the mid-oceanic ridge where a divergent boundary is causing two plates to move away from one another resulting in spreading of the sea floor. As the plates move apart new material wells up and cools onto the edge of the plates.

How does the ocean floor move?

Convection currents in the molten mantle cause the plates to slowly move about the Earth a few centimeters each year. Many ocean floor features are a result of the interactions that occur at the edges of these plates. The shifting plates may collide (converge) move away (diverge) or slide past (transform) each other.

What are the physical and major features of Ocean basin?

A number of major features of the basins depart from this average—for example the mountainous ocean ridges deep-sea trenches and jagged linear fracture zones. … Other significant features of the ocean floor include aseismic ridges abyssal hills and seamounts and guyots.

What evidence was presented by geologists in the 1960s that sea floor spreading actually takes place?

In particular four major scientific developments spurred the formulation of the plate-tectonics theory: (1) demonstration of the ruggedness and youth of the ocean floor (2) confirmation of repeated reversals of the Earth magnetic field in the geologic past (3) emergence of the seafloor-spreading hypothesis and

How ocean floor rocks and sediments provide evidence of seafloor spreading?

2. Explain how ocean-floor rocks and sediments are evidence of seafloor spreading. BOTH SEDIMENT THICKNESS AND THE AGES OF OCEAN-FLOOR ROCKS INCREASE WITH DISTANCE FROM THE RIDGE. THESE DATA ARE CONSISTENT WITH NEW CRUST FROMING AT RIDGES AND BEING DESTROYED AT TRENCHES.

How is sea floor spreading related to the continental drift theory?

Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. … At a spreading center basaltic magma rises up the fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form new seabed.

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What features of seafloor mountain ranges on the ocean floor Upwells magma and formed new ocean floor?

The location on the seafloor where magma upwells and new seafloor forms. Mid-ocean ridges are the dominant feature of divergent plate boundaries found in the oceans. The mechanism for moving continents. The formation of new seafloor at spreading ridges pushes lithospheric plates on the Earth’s surface.

What is the ocean floor made up of?

Ocean rocks and sediments

Ocean crust is denser thinner darker-colored and contains more of the chemical elements iron and magnesium than continental crust. The basement of the ocean basins is mostly made of black volcanic rock called basalt. Mid-oceanic ridge volcanoes produce basalt.

Which of the following features of the ocean indicate tectonic activity?

Deep ocean trenches volcanoes island arcs submarine mountain ranges and fault lines are examples of features that can form along plate tectonic boundaries. … Usually one of the converging plates will move beneath the other a process known as subduction.

What ocean floor features are part of the continental crust?

A continental margin is the outer edge of continental crust abutting oceanic crust under coastal waters. It is one of the three major zones of the ocean floor the other two being deep-ocean basins and mid-ocean ridges. The continental shelf is the relatively shallow water area found in proximity to continents.

Where is the ocean floor deepest?

Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest location on Earth. According to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) the United States has jurisdiction over the trench and its resources.

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How is the deep ocean floor different from the shallow parts of the ocean floor near land?

How is the deep ocean floor different from the shallow parts of the ocean floor near land? The deep ocean floor is flatter than the parts of the ocean floor than parts of the ocean floor near the land. the deep ocean floor is steeper than the parts of the ocean floor near the land.

What is the meaning of ocean floor?

Definition of seafloor

: the floor of a sea or ocean : seabed The Earth’s crust in this view is divided into several immense plates that make up the continents and seafloors and that all float on a hot plastic subterranean “mantle.”— Walter Sullivan.

What is seafloor spreading quizlet?

In sea-floor spreading the sea floor spreads apart along both sides of a mid-ocean ridge as new crust is added. As a result the ocean floors move like conveyor belts carrying the continents along with them.

What happens to the ocean floor at deep ocean trenches?

In ocean trenches one tectonic plate sinks underneath another called a subduction zone at convergent boundaries. … As the oceanic plate sinks it melts into the mantle and the magma is recycled into the Earth.

What is the process where the ocean floor sinks below the deep ocean trench and back into the mantle?

Subduction is the process by which the ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle.

What happens at the bottom of the ocean?

Where is the bottom of the sea?

In the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Guam and the Philippines lies the Marianas Trench also known as the Mariana Trench. At 35 814 feet below sea level its bottom is called the Challenger Deep — the deepest point known on Earth.

What can we find at the bottom of the ocean?

In addition to minerals we’ve found unusual animals at the bottom of the ocean. Smithsonian points out that even at 13 000 feet below the surface where temperatures are near freezing and there’s no sunlight researchers have discovered living creatures such as fish coral crustaceans jellyfish and worms.

What are three kinds of evidence of the ocean floor spreading?

Several types of evidence from the oceans supported Hess’s theory of sea-floor spreading-evidence from molten material magnetic stripes and drilling samples.

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