Development of a Theory

Mapping the Ocean

Floor during the late 1940s scientist started to explore the seafloor and trying to determine
the depth of the ocean with each sounder.
When they figured out the depths they mad topography maps of the ocean floor.
The new topography maps revealed vast mountain ranges stretched for many miles
deep below the oceans surface.
Mid-ocean ridges: The mountain ranges in the middle of the oceans.
They are much larger than any mountain ranges on land.

Seafloor Spreading
By 1960s scientist discovered helped to explain continental drift.
Seafloor Spreading: The process by which new oceanic crust for along mid-ocean
ridge and older oceanic crust moves away from the ridge.
When the seafloor spreads the mantle below melts and forms magma.
When lava cools and crystalizes on the seafloor it forms basalt.
Forms pillow lava
When sea floor continues to spread apart, the older oceanic crust separates from the
mid-ocean ridge
If seafloor spreads the continents must also be moving

Topography of the
Seafloor The rugged mountains the make up the mid-ocean ridge can form in two different
ways.
One way is when large amounts of lava erupts cool and build up the ridge, or as the
lava cools it forms new crust and it cracks and the the rocks move up and down aloft
there cracks of the seafloor formed rugged mountains.
Sediment accumulates on top of the oceanic crust.
Close to the ridge there is little sediment, but far from the ridge the sediment build up
is thick.

Magnetic Reversals
Center is a big magnet.
Normal Polarity: A state in which magnetized objects, such as compass needles, will
Orient themselves to point north.
Magnetic Reversal: The magnet fields reverse direction.
Reversed Polarity: A sate in which magnetized objects would reverse direction and
orient themselves to point south

Evidence to Support
the Theory Scientist studied magnetized rocks on the seafloor and recorded magnetic
signatures on each rock.
scientists discovered magnetic strips on the rocks, that formed and magnetized
during a normal polarity or a reversed polarity.
This proved that the ocean crust formed at the mid-ocean ridges is carried away from
the center of the ridges in opposite directions.
More thermal energy leaves earth near mid-ocean ridges than beneath the abyssal
plains.