Sea Floor Spreading Evidence For Continental Drift

How did seafloor spreading provide evidence for continental drift.

Sea floor spreading evidence for continental drift.

Plate tectonics theory convection currents and sea floor spreading. The theory maintains that the crust and uppermost mantle or lithosphere is segmented into a number of solid rigid slabs called lithospheric plates. Harry hess s hypothesis about seafloor spreading had collected several pieces of evidence to support the theory. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity.

These plates float atop an underlying rock layer called the asthenosphere. Studies conducted with thermal probes for example indicate that the heat flow through bottom sediments is generally comparable to that through the continents except over the mid ocean ridges. Sea floor spreading convection and seafloor spreading continental drift theory plate tectonics sea floor spreading origin of oceans and continents continental drift and seafloor spreading dive diser. In 1965 a canadian geophysicist j.

He suggested that continents moved around the earth like giant rafts. In 1963 fred vine and d h. Which of the following lines of evidence for continental drift plate tectonics was found after wegener published his theory. Fellow scientists at the time thought the theory was ludicrous.

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. Whats people lookup in this blog. Matthews used paleomagnetism to test the theory of seafloor spreading by studying paleomagnetic data from a portion of the midocean ridge system if the seafloor has spread laterally by the addition of new crust at the oceanic ridges there should be a relatively symmetrical pattern of magnetic orientation normal polarity reversed polarity normal polarity and. Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift.

Tuzo said that earth s crust or lithosphere was divided into large rigid pieces called plates. Supporters of continental drift originally theorized that the continents moved drifted through unmoving oceans. Tuzo wilson combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics. See also continental drift a veritable legion of evidence supports the seafloor spreading hypothesis.

This evidence was from the investigations of the molten material seafloor drilling radiometric age dating and fossil ages and the magnetic stripes. The existence of mid ocean ridges where seafloor spreading starts b. Seafloor spreading evidence for continental drift. Evidence of similar paleoclimates in belts across pangaean latitudes.

Alfred wegener a german meteorologist born in 1880 developed the idea of continental drift. By the 1960s the theories of continental drift and sea floor spreading were supported by reliable scientific data and combined to develop modern day plate tectonic theory.