Does the seafloor cause more or less land?

1. Does seafloor spreading create new land?
2. How does seafloor spreading affect continents?
3. Is the ocean floor considered land?
4. What is the importance of seafloor spreading?
5. How does the rate of seafloor spreading affect sea level?
6. What causes tectonic plates to move?
7. Is seafloor spreading drifted the continents?
8. Is seafloor spreading a theory?
9. Can seafloor spreading cause earthquakes?
10. Who owns the ocean floor?
11. How does this difference affect the depth of the ocean?
12. How deep is the Mariana Trench?
13. Does the Earth get bigger because of seafloor spreading?
14. What is the importance of seafloor spreading in understanding the origin of?
15. What does seafloor spreading produce?

Does seafloor spreading create new land?

The denser lithospheric material then melts back into the Earth's mantle. Seafloor spreading creates new crust. Subduction destroys old crust. The two forces roughly balance each other, so the shape and diameter of the Earth remain constant.

How does seafloor spreading affect continents?

Seafloor spreading creates new oceanic crust at a mid-ocean ridge. ... On one side, the oceanic crust is subducted below the continental crust. On the other side, the two plates collide in a transform boundary, which is a horizontal type of movement. The latter is the closest we really come to continents drifting.

Is the ocean floor considered land?

Assorted References. The ocean floor has the same general character as the land areas of the world: mountains, plains, channels, canyons, exposed rocks, and sediment-covered areas. The lack of weathering and erosion in most areas, however, allows geological processes to be seen more clearly on the seafloor than…

What is the importance of seafloor spreading?

Significance. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge, tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere.

How does the rate of seafloor spreading affect sea level?

The increased rate of seafloor spreading caused sea level to rise. Increasing the rate of seafloor spreading inflates the ridge. Hot, young lithosphere is forming and moving away from the ridge at a faster rate and moves a greater distance from the ridge before it cools and contracts. ... So sea level rises.

What causes tectonic plates to move?

Tectonic shift is the movement of the plates that make up Earth's crust. ... 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.

Is seafloor spreading drifted the continents?

Seafloor spreading is the mechanism for Wegener's drifting continents. Convection currents within the mantle take the continents on a conveyor-belt ride of oceanic crust that over millions of years takes them around the planet's surface.

Is seafloor spreading a theory?

seafloor spreading, theory that oceanic crust forms along submarine mountain zones, known collectively as the mid-ocean ridge system, and spreads out laterally away from them. The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed by the American geophysicist Harry H. ... Hess in 1960.

Can seafloor spreading cause earthquakes?

Volcanic activity causes the seafloor to spread along oceanic ridges, forming new areas of crust and mantle. After being generated, this new oceanic lithosphere cools down and contracts by up to 3% of its own volume. This contraction can trigger oceanic earthquakes.

Who owns the ocean floor?

The oceans have no apparent surface features -- just a flat, vast, briny expanse. They're also all connected; the world's five oceans are technically one single ocean that covers 71 percent of the planet [source: NOAA]. This makes it difficult to divide, and so ultimately, you own the oceans.

How does this difference affect the depth of the ocean?

Cold, salty water sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Cold water has a higher density than warm water. Water gets colder with depth because cold, salty ocean water sinks to the bottom of the ocean basins below the less dense warmer water near the surface.

How deep is the Mariana Trench?

It is 11,034 meters (36,201 feet) deep, which is almost 7 miles. Tell students that if you placed Mount Everest at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the peak would still be 2,133 meters (7,000 feet) below sea level. Show students NOAA's Mariana Trench animation.

Does the Earth get bigger because of seafloor spreading?

New crust is continually being pushed away from divergent boundaries (where sea-floor spreading occurs), increasing Earth's surface. But the Earth isn't getting any bigger.

What is the importance of seafloor spreading in understanding the origin of?

Seafloor spreading is the mechanism by which new oceanic lithosphere is created at and moves away from divergent plate boundaries. The seafloor spreading hypothesis led to one of the most important paradigm shifts in the history of the Earth sciences, the plate tectonics scientific revolution.

What does seafloor spreading produce?

Seafloor spreading takes place at midocean ridges and produces basalt, the rock that makes up the oceanic crust. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and East Pacific Rise are examples of midocean ridges.