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What are the evidence of the seafloor spreading theory?

What are the evidence of the seafloor spreading theory?

Evidence of Sea Floor Spreading. Harry Hess’s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material, seafloor drilling, radiometric age dating and fossil ages, and the magnetic stripes.

What are three evidences of seafloor 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.

What is the major evidence that sea floor spreading creates new lithosphere explain your answer?

The record of magnetic reversals is carried away from each side of the spreading center of a mid-ocean ridge, showing that the molten rock is creating new lithosphere.

What evidence supports Hess theory?

Alfred Wegener produced evidence in 1912 that the continents are in motion, but because he could not explain what forces could move them, geologists rejected his ideas. Almost 50 years later Harry Hess confirmed Wegener’s ideas by using the evidence of seafloor spreading to explain what moved continents.

How did Harry Hess prove seafloor spreading?

Hess discovered that the oceans were shallower in the middle and identified the presence of Mid Ocean Ridges, raised above the surrounding generally flat sea floor (abyssal plain) by as much as 1.5 km. This created new seafloor which then spread away from the ridge in both directions.

What is an example of seafloor spreading?

Two examples of seafloor spreading are the East African Rift and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The East African Rift is continental rift that is a divergent plate boundary. At this rift, the African Plate is splitting in to two plates called the Nubian Plate and the Somalian Plate.

What happens during seafloor spreading?

Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—large slabs of Earth’s lithosphere—split apart from each other. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor. Eventually, the crust cracks.

When did Harry Hess discover seafloor spreading?

The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed by the American geophysicist Harry H. Hess in 1960.

What is evidence of seafloor spreading Brainly?

There is lots of evidence that proves that seafloor spreading is occurring. One piece of evidence is mid-ocean ridges. Rocks found near mid-ocean ridges are young and get older as the distance from the ocean ridge increases.

What is the importance of seafloor spreading in understanding the origin of the plate?

Significance. 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.

Who proved that the seafloor is spreading?

Harry H. Hess
The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed by the American geophysicist Harry H. Hess in 1960.

How does the spreading of the seafloor occur?

Seafloor Spreading is the usual process at work at divergent plate boundaries, leading to the creation of new ocean floor. As two tectonic plates slowly separate, molten material rises up from within the mantle to fill the opening.

What happens when tectonic plates crash on the seafloor?

Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart. At subduction zones, the edge of the denser plate subduct s, or slides, beneath the less-dense one. The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the Earth’s mantle. Seafloor spreading creates new crust.

How did Harry Hess come up with the seafloor spreading hypothesis?

The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed by the American geophysicist Harry H. Hess in 1960. On the basis of Tharp’s efforts and other new discoveries about the deep-ocean floor, Hess postulated that molten material from Earth’s mantle continuously wells up along the crests of the mid-ocean ridges…

When does the earth’s magnetic field reverse, sea floor spreading begins?

When the Earth’s magnetic field reverses, a new stripe, with the new polarity, begins. Such magnetic patterns led to recognition of the occurrence of sea-floor spreading, and they remain some of the strongest evidence for the theory of plate tectonics. The figure below includes two images of the ocean floor.

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