What is the relationship between seafloor spreading and continental drift?

What is the relationship between seafloor spreading and continental drift?

Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of the theory of continental drift. Supporters of continental drift originally theorized that the continents moved (drifted) through unmoving oceans. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity.

What are the similarities and differences of plate tectonics and continental drift?

The main difference between plate tectonics and continental drift is that plate tectonics describes the features and movement of Earth’s surface in the present and in the past whereas continental drift describes the drifting of Earth’s continents on the ocean bed.

What does the theory of continental drift and the theory of plate tectonics have in common?

According to the theory of continental drift, the world was made up of a single continent through most of geologic time. According to the generally accepted plate-tectonics theory, scientists believe that Earth’s surface is broken into a number of shifting slabs or plates, which average about 50 miles in thickness.

What is the major difference between continental drift and plate tectonics?

The difference between continental drift and plate tectonics is that the theory of continental drift states that the world was made up of a single continent. The theory of plate-tectonics, on the other hand, states that earth’s surface is broken into numbers of shifting plates or slabs.

What cause the plates to move?

The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.

What is the seafloor called?

seabed
The term seabed refers to the top-surface of earth in seas and oceans, also known as the seafloor or ocean floor. This surface has a topography, which is directly related to the nature of its subsurface geology, in places modified by ocean currents and sedimentary processes.

How is sea floor spreading different from continental drift?

How is seafloor spreading different from continental drift In the Continental drift theory, it was thought that the continents plowed through the ocean. Seafloor spreading was about the tectonic plates diverging, and pushing the continents away from the mid-ocean ridges.

What is theory combined sea floor spreading and continental drift?

In 1965, a Canadian geophysicist, J. Tuzo Wilson, combined the continental drift and seafloor spreading hypotheses to propose the theory of plate tectonics . Tuzo said that Earth’s crust, or lithosphere, was divided into large, rigid pieces called plates.

What are facts about seafloor spreading?

What Happens During the Process of Seafloor Spreading? History. Scientists originally believed that drifting was an occurrence exclusive to continents through continental drifts. Geographic Features. The process of seafloor spreading leads to the formation of numerous geographical features which can be terrestrial, sub-terrestrial, or marine features. Mid-Ocean Ridges.

What causes subduction and seafloor spreading?

Subduction occur when two plates converge towards each other and the denser plate being heavier slide below the lighter plate and Sea floor spreading occur at the Mid oceanic ridges where Diverging limbs of Convection cells tend to pull apart the plate and create a Rift Valley like the East African rift valley .