The Scientist Who First Hypothesized Sea Floor Spreading Was

The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century.

The scientist who first hypothesized sea floor spreading was.

Seafloor spreading theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones and spreads out laterally away from them. 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. For instance the atlantic ocean is believed to be expanding because of its few trenches. 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. The san andreas fault is what type of boundary. Subduction and sea floor spreading are processes that could alter the size and form of the ocean. The rate at which new oceanic lithosphere is added to each tectonic plate on either side of a mid ocean ridge is the spreading half rate and is equal to half of the spreading rate.

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. 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. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates. 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.

Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast intermediate or slow. Rift valley only divergent these helped wegner to develop his hypothesis of continental drift. The scientist who first hypothesized sea floor spreading was hess.