The Scientist Who First Hypothesized Sea Floor Spreading Was

As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading 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.

The scientist who first hypothesized sea floor spreading was. For instance the atlantic ocean is believed to be expanding because of its few trenches. Basalt the once molten rock that makes up most new oceanic crust is a fairly magnetic substance and scientists began using magnetometers to measure the magnetism of the ocean floor in the 1950s what they discovered was that the magnetism of the ocean floor around. The scientist who first hypothesized sea floor spreading was hess. Plate tectonics theory dealing with the dynamics of earth s outer shell that revolutionized earth sciences by providing a uniform context for understanding mountain building processes volcanoes and earthquakes as well as the evolution of earth s surface and reconstructing its past continents and oceans.

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. The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. Subduction and sea floor spreading are processes that could alter the size and form of the ocean. The san andreas fault is what type of boundary.

These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. On each side of the ridge sea floor moves from the ridge towards the deep sea trenches where it is subducted and recycled back into the mantle. Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. In the early 1960s princeton geologist harry hess proposed the hypothesis of sea floor spreading in which basaltic magma from the mantle rises to create new ocean floor at mid ocean ridges.

This idea played a pivotal role in the development of the theory of plate tectonics which revolutionized geologic thought during the last quarter of the 20th century. Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them.