seafloor spreading: Supporting Evidence for 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. Second, the rock making up the ocean floor is considerably younger than the continents, with no samples found over 200 million years old, as contrasted with maximum ages of over 3 billion years for the continental rocks. This confirms that older ocean crust has been reabsorbed in ocean trench systems.

By the mid-1960s studies of the earth's magnetic field showed a history of periodic reversals in polarity (see paleomagnetism). A timescale for “normal” and “reversed” polarity was established, showing 171 magnetic “flip-flops” in the past 76 million years. Magnetic surveys conducted near the mid-ocean ridge showed elongated patterns of normal and reversed polarity of the ocean floor in bands paralleling the rift and symmetrically distributed as mirror images on either side of it. The magnetic history of the earth is thus recorded in the spreading ocean floors as in a very slow magnetic tape recording, forming a continuous record of the movement of the ocean floors. Other supportive evidence has emerged from study of the fracture zones that offset the sections of the ridge.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Supporting Evidence for Seafloor Spreading
• Role of the Spreading Center
• Discovery of the Mid-Ocean Ridges
• Bibliography

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