Where does subduction and seafloor spreading occur?

Where does subduction and seafloor spreading occur?

The destruction of oceanic crust occurs at subduction zones where oceanic crust is forced under either continental crust or oceanic crust. Today, the Atlantic basin is actively spreading at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Only a small portion of the oceanic crust produced in the Atlantic is subducted.

What feature on the ocean floor is produced by sea-floor spreading by subduction?

As subduction occurs, crust closer to a mid-ocean ridge moves away from the ridge and toward a deep-ocean trench.

How is sea-floor spreading and subduction like a conveyor belt?

What is the process of sea-floor spreading? In sea-floor spreading, the sea floor spreads apart along both sides of a mid-ocean ridge as new crust is added. As a result, the ocean floors move like conveyor belts, carrying the continents along with them.

Does seafloor spreading and subduction work together to move the plates?

Sea-floor spreading and subduction work together. They move the ocean floor as if it were on a giant conveyor belt. New ocenaic crust is hot. But as it moves away from the mid-ocean ridge, it cools and becomes more dense.

Where does seafloor spreading occur?

divergent plate boundaries
Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor.

What is the root cause of seafloor spreading?

Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor.

What supports the theory of seafloor spreading?

Abundant evidence supports the major contentions of the seafloor-spreading theory. First, samples of the deep ocean floor show that basaltic oceanic crust and overlying sediment become progressively younger as the mid-ocean ridge is approached, and the sediment cover is thinner near the ridge.

What is the cause of seafloor spreading?

Which of the following is evidence of seafloor spreading?

Several types of evidence supported Hess’s theory of sea-floor spreading: eruptions of molten material, magnetic stripes in the rock of the ocean floor, and the ages of the rocks themselves.

How is the spreading of the seafloor related to subduction?

Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself is a site of tectonic activity. Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. Subduction is another. Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other instead of spreading apart. At subduction zones, the edge of the denser plate subduct s, or slides, beneath the less-dense one.

How did scientists discover the spreading of the ocean floor?

The magnetism of mid-ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. Basalt, the once- molten rock that makes up most new oceanic crust, is a fairly magnetic substance, and scientists began using magnetometer s to measure the magnetism of the ocean floor in the 1950s.

Why are two oceanic plates preferentially subducted?

Where two oceanic plates meet, the older, denser plate is preferentially subducted beneath the younger, warmer one. Where one of the plate margins is oceanic and the other is continental, the greater buoyancy of continental crust prevents it from sinking, and the oceanic plate is preferentially subducted.

How are convection currents related to seafloor spreading?

Convection currents also “recycle” lithospheric materials back to the mantle. Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense.