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Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. (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). Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast, intermediate, or slow.
Harry Hess proposed the seafloor spreading hypothesis in 1960 (published in 1962 [1]); the term "spreading of the seafloor" was introduced by geophysicist Robert S. Dietz in 1961. [2] According to Hess, seafloor was created at mid-oceanic ridges by the convection of the Earth's mantle, pushing and spreading the older crust away from the ridge. [3]
In the 1960s, geologists discovered and began to propose mechanisms for seafloor spreading. The discovery of mid-ocean ridges and the process of seafloor spreading allowed for Wegener's theory to be expanded so that it included the movement of oceanic crust as well as the continents. [ 49 ]
Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor.These particles either have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the sea, mainly by rivers but also by dust carried by wind and by the flow of glaciers into the sea, or they are biogenic deposits from marine organisms or from ...
Marine geological studies were of extreme importance in providing the critical evidence for sea floor spreading and plate tectonics in the years following World War II. The deep ocean floor is the last essentially unexplored frontier and detailed mapping in support of economic ( petroleum and metal mining ), natural disaster mitigation, and ...
Maydan Syncline, Oman, part of the Semail Ophiolite - A sheeted dyke complex on the coast of Oman has been discovered to have been formed during a single sea-floor spreading episode. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] Hole 504b, Costa Rica - Hole 504b is a scientific ocean drilling program that burrowed 1562.3 m below the seafloor directly through layers of sediment ...
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge stretches 10,000 miles from north to south, and is considered “the longest mountain range in the world and one of the most prominent geological features on Earth,” NOAA ...
Magnetostratigraphy uses the polarity reversal history of Earth's magnetic field recorded in rocks to determine the age of those rocks. Reversals have occurred at irregular intervals throughout Earth's history. The age and pattern of these reversals is known from the study of sea floor spreading zones and the dating of volcanic rocks.