Magnetic Stripes In The Ocean Floor

Magnetic evidence for seafloor spreading explains how magnetic polarity frozen into seafloor basalts reveals evidence for the creation of new seafloor at mid ocean ridges.

Magnetic stripes in the ocean floor.

Magma acquires the magnetic direction present on earth when it hardens into rock 3. The figure below includes two images of the ocean floor. One stripe with normal polarity and the adjoining stripe with reversed polarity. Several types of evidence supported hess s theory of sea floor spreading.

These two things were the magnetic striping on the ocean floor and the age of seafloor rocks. In the 20th century the magnetic survey was conducted in the mid ocean ridge in order to investigate evidence of sea floor spreading. Magnetic striping of the sea floor after mid ocean ridges and trenches were discovered more evidence was discovered that helped to support the theory that the continents had moved around. Plate tectonics and reversals of the earth s magnetic field are responsible for the magnetic stripes found on the ocean floor.

Plates move as new rock forms which causes magnetic direction to skew away. Alternating stripes of magnetically different rock were laid out in rows on either side of the mid ocean ridge. Magnetic stripes on the ocean floor are hallmarks of seafloor spreading but have now been found on the ground in ethiopia where crust is pulling apart. Identify the factors that cause magnetic stripes to form along the ocean floor.

Eruptions of molten material magnetic stripes in the rock of the ocean floor and the ages of the rocks themselves. Magnetic striping magnetic minerals are found in rocks. When the earth s magnetic field reverses a new stripe with the new polarity begins. Evidence from molten material.

When these magnetic patterns were mapped over a wide region the ocean floor showed a zebra like pattern. Evidence for sea floor spreading. This evidence led scientists to look again at wegener s hypothesis of continental drift. When magma flows out of a mid ocean ridge small magnetic minerals in the magma align themselves to point in the direction of the earth s current magnetic north.

By using the magnetometer the magnetic polarity will be shown through a timescale that contains the normal and a reverse polarity. Such magnetic patterns led to recognition of the occurrence of sea floor spreading and they remain some of the strongest evidence for the theory of plate tectonics. Over time the earth s magnetic field reverses its north. Magnetic stripes and isotopic clocks oceanographic exploration in the 1950s led to a much better understanding of the ocean floor.

Among the new findings was the discovery of zebra stripe like magnetic patterns for the rocks of the ocean floor.