What boundaries are on the ocean floor?

What boundaries are on the ocean floor?

As the plates move, new sea floor can be created. The plates form three different kinds of boundaries: convergent, divergent, and transform. Convergent boundaries are also called collision boundaries because they are areas where two plates collide. At transform boundaries, the plates slide and grind past one another.

Are areas of the seafloor spreading along a divergent or a convergent plate boundary?

Areas of seafloor spreading are along a divergent plate boundary because the plates are being pushed apart by the rising magma.

Is Ocean Ridge a convergent boundary?

Mid-ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries, where new ocean floor is created as the Earth’s tectonic plates spread apart.

What is sea floor spreading and what causes it?

Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor. Eventually, the crust cracks.

What is ocean-ocean convergent boundary?

At an ocean-ocean convergent boundary, one of the plates (oceanic crust and lithospheric mantle) is pushed, or subducted, under the other (Figure 4.6. 1). It mixes with the overlying mantle, and the addition of water to the hot mantle lowers the crust’s melting point and leads to the formation of magma (flux melting).

What is called sea floor spreading?

Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—large slabs of Earth’s lithosphere—split apart from each other. Seafloor spreading and other tectonic activity processes are the result of mantle convection. Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries.

What are the three types of convergent plates?

Convergent boundaries , where two plates are moving toward each other, are of three types, depending on the type of crust present on either side of the boundary — oceanic or continental . The types are ocean-ocean, ocean-continent, and continent-continent.

What happens during sea floor spreading?

What is spreading boundary?

Divergent boundaries. Divergent boundaries occur along spreading centers where plates are moving apart and new crust is created by magma pushing up from the mantle.

How does sea floor spreading work?

What is sea floor spreading 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.

What are the three types of convergent boundary?

How are plate boundaries related to seafloor spreading?

There are three types of plate-plate interactions based upon relative motion: convergent, where plates collide, divergent, where plates separate, and transform motion, where plates simply slide past each other. Seafloor Spreading is the usual process at work at divergent plate boundaries, leading to the creation of new ocean floor.

How is the spreading of the seafloor controlled?

Seafloor spreading. They are driven by the flowing mantle below and their motions are controlled by a complex puzzle of plate collisions around the globe. There are three types of plate-plate interactions based upon relative motion: convergent, where plates collide, divergent, where plates separate, and transform motion,…

How are convection currents related to seafloor spreading?

Convection currents also “recycle” lithospheric materials back to the mantle. Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense.

Which is an example of a divergent plate boundary?

Plate Boundaries: Divergent, Convergent, and Transform. Molten rock from the mantle erupts along the opening, forming new crust. The earthquakes that occur along these zones, called spreading centers, are relatively small. The Great Rift Valley in Africa, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden all formed as a result of divergent plate motion.