Magnetic Stripes In The Ocean Floor

These patterns were unlike any seen for continental rocks.

Magnetic stripes in the ocean floor.

Evidence for sea floor spreading. Select the two correct answers. Identify the factors that cause magnetic stripes to form along the ocean floor. When these magnetic patterns were mapped over a wide region the ocean floor showed a zebra like pattern.

Magnetic stripes and isotopic clocks oceanographic exploration in the 1950s led to a much better understanding of the ocean floor. Eruptions of molten material magnetic stripes in the rock of the ocean floor and the ages of the rocks themselves. This evidence led scientists to look again at wegener s hypothesis of continental drift. The figure below includes two images of the ocean floor.

When the earth s magnetic field reverses a new stripe with the new polarity begins. In the 20th century the magnetic survey was conducted in the mid ocean ridge in order to investigate evidence of sea floor spreading. Among the new findings was the discovery of zebra stripe like magnetic patterns for the rocks of the ocean floor. Evidence from molten material.

One stripe with normal polarity and the adjoining stripe with reversed polarity. 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. Alternating stripes of magnetically different rock were laid out in rows on either side of the mid ocean ridge. 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.

Plate tectonics and reversals of the earth s magnetic field are responsible for the magnetic stripes found on 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 on the ocean floor are hallmarks of seafloor spreading but have now been found on the ground in ethiopia where crust is pulling apart. 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.

Magnetic striping magnetic minerals are found in rocks. Several types of evidence supported hess s theory of sea floor spreading. Over time the earth s magnetic field reverses its north. By using the magnetometer the magnetic polarity will be shown through a timescale that contains the normal and a reverse polarity.

Magnetic direction of rock changes as earth s magnetic poles drift.