1. Review from yesterday!

3. What is the theory of continental drift?
the idea that the continents were once all joined together in one super-continent called Pangaea and slowly moved to their current positions

4. Key concepts Evidence of “continental drift”—.
Physical fit of continents
Fossil evidence
Measurements of movement
Rock layer sequences
Glacial evidence
Alfred Wegener

5. Sea-Floor Spreading

6. Sea-Floor Spreading
Sonar - a device that bounces sound waves off under-water objects and then records the echoes of these sound waves. The time it takes for the echo to arrive indicates the distance to the object.

7. Sea-Floor Spreading
1. Mid-Ocean Ridge – the longest chain of mountains in the world---these are divergent plate boundaries.

8. Sea-Floor Spreading
3. Sea-Floor Spreading – Harry Hess in the 1960’s; the process that continually adds new material to the ocean floor while pushing older rocks away from the ridge

9. Sea-Floor Spreading

10. Ocean floor moves like a conveyor belt carrying continents with it.
New ocean floor forms along cracks in the ocean crust as molten material erupts from the mantle spreading out and pushing older rocks to the sides of the crack. New ocean floor is continually added by the process of sea-floor spreading.

11. Sea-Floor Spreading
1. Evidence from Molten Material – Rocks shaped like pillows(rock pillows) show that molten material has erupted again and again from cracks along the mid-ocean ridge and cooled quickly

12. Sea-Floor Spreading
2. Evidence from Magnetic Stripes – Rocks that make up the ocean floor lie in a pattern of magnetized stripes which hold a record of the reversals in Earth’s magnetic field

13. Sea-Floor Spreading

14. Sea-Floor Spreading

15. Sea-Floor Spreading
3. Evidence from Drilling Samples – Core samples from the ocean floor show that older rocks are found farther from the ridge; youngest rocks are in the center of the ridge

16. Sea-Floor Spreading
8. Subduction – Process by which the ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle; allows part of the ocean floor to sink back into the mantle

17. Sea-Floor Spreading: Subduction zone
Deep-Ocean Trench – Occurs at subduction zones. Deep underwater canyons form where oceanic crust bends downward

18. Sea-Floor Spreading

19. How did we get from “blue” oceans to such great detail?
Magnetic Wiggles!!!

20. Earth’s Magnetic Field

21. BUT…..Magnetic North is NOT at the North Pole

22. AND…the Magnetic Field Reverses
Field reverses ~1 time every 200,000 years on average.
400 times in last 330 million years.
Last reversal was 780,000 years ago.
NORMAL
REVERSE