Sea Floor Spreading Divergent Boundary

The less dense material rises often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor.

Sea floor spreading divergent boundary.

Extensional forces stretch the lithosphere and produce a deep fissure. Seafloor spreading is the usual process at work at divergent plate boundaries leading to the creation of new ocean floor. Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. Divergent boundaries also form volcanic islands which occur when the plates move apart to produce gaps that molten lava rises to fill.

Divergent boundaries in the middle of the oceans cause seafloor spreading. Most active divergent plate boundaries occur between oceanic plates and exist as mid oceanic ridges. Samples collected from the ocean floor show that the age of oceanic crust increases with distance from the spreading centre important evidence in favour of this process. On earth magma forms by partial melting of silicate rocks either in the mantle continental or oceanic crust.

The spreading however is generally not uniform causing linear features perpendicular to the divergent boundaries. Magma rises up from the mantle and oozes out from the cracks like a long thin undersea volcano. When a divergent boundary occurs beneath oceanic lithosphere the rising convection current below lifts the lithosphere producing a mid ocean ridge. As the oceanic plates move apart they produce cracks in the ocean floor.

As upwelling of magma continues the plates continue to diverge a process known as seafloor spreading. Does sea floor spreading occur at a convergent boundary answers no. Divergent plate boundaries two plates move apart upwelling of hot material from the mantle to create new seafloor 2 4 list three types of plate boundaries and describe the relative motion at each of them. For example andesitic magmatism associated with the formation of island arcs at convergent plate boundaries or basaltic magmatism at mid ocean ridges during sea floor spreading at divergent plate boundaries.

When the fissure opens pressure is reduced on the super heated mantle material below. These age data also allow the rate of seafloor spreading to be determined and they show that rates vary from about 0 1 cm 0 04 inch per year to 17 cm 6 7 inches per year. As two tectonic plates slowly separate molten material rises up from within the mantle to fill the opening. Because of this the youngest sea floor can be found along divergent boundaries such as the mid atlantic ocean ridge.

This dataset shows the age of the ocean floor along with the labeled tectonic plates and boundaries. In this way the rugged volcanic landscape of a mid ocean ridge is created along the plate boundary.