LECTURE NOTE ON

GEOTECTONICS
GEM 309

Course outlines
1) Concept and evidence for plate tectonics
2) Paleo-magnetism
3) Continental drift
4) Seafloor spreading
5) Mid-ocean ridges
6) Island Arcs and transform faults
7) Plate tectonics in space and time

NOTE:
*The note may not necessarily follow the sequence of the course
outlines presented above.
*Also, several ideas (globally) are shared in this course to make you be
on the same page globally with all other learners in the global market.

Subduction Zones

Where two tectonic plates converge, if one or both of the plates is oceanic
lithosphere, a subduction zone will form. An oceanic plate will sink back
into the mantle. Remember, oceanic plates are formed from mantle
material at midocean ridges. Young oceanic lithosphere is hot and
buoyant (low density) when it forms at a midocean ridge. But as it spreads
away from the ridge and cools and contracts (becomes denser) it is able
to sink into the hotter underlying mantle. There is a deep ocean trench
where the oceanic plate bends downward.
Volcanic Arcs: The basaltic ocean crust contains hydrous minerals like
amphiboles, some of which formed by hydrothermal alteration as
seawater seeped through hot, fractured, young ocean crust at the midocean
ridge. As the ocean crust sinks deeper into the mantle the pressure
increases (the temperature of the ocean crust rocks increases more slowly
because rocks are poor conductors of heat). At depths of around 100 km
beneath the surface, the pressure is great enough for the hydrous minerals
to undergo metamorphism. The resulting minerals are denser and they
don't contain the bonded water. This metamorphic dewatering process
liberates water from the descending crust. The water gradually seeps
upward into the overlying wedge of hot mantle. The addition of water to
the already hot mantle rocks lowers their melting temperature resulting in
partial melting of ultramafic mantle rocks to yield mafic magma. Melting
aided by the addition of water or other fluid is called flux melting. It is
somewhat more complicated than this, but metamorphic dewatering of
subducting crust and flux melting of the mantle wedge appears to account
for most of the magma at subduction zones.
Magma formed above a subducting plate slowly rise into the overriding
crust and finally to the surface forming a volcanic arc, a chain of active
volcanoes which parallels the deep ocean trench. Beneath the active
volcanic arc lie intrusive igneous rocks formed from magma that didn't
make it all the way to the surface before crystallizing. The volcanic
arcs may be volcanic island arcs (e.g., Aleutians,
Mariannas), where one oceanic plate subducts beneath another oceanic
plate, or continental volcanic arcs (e.g., Andes, Cascades), where oceanic
plates subduct under a continental plate. The most abundant igneous rock
formed at volcanic arcs is andesite (or intrusive diorite), though volcanic
arc rocks may range in composition from basalt to rhyolite (mafic to
felsic).
Benioff Zones: Earthquakes in and around deep ocean trenches are
principally produced by motions on thrust faults, indicating compression
(converging plates). A plane of earthquake focci descend from the area
around the trench
underneath the overriding plate. The farther from the trench, the deeper
the earthquakes are. These earthquakes of the Benioff Zone (or Wadati-
Benioff Zone) occur near the upper surface of the descending plate (or
slab). They occur down to depths of around 670 km at some subduction
zones. Note: the volcanic arc lies where the Benioff Zone earthquakes
are around 100 km beneath the surface but Benioff zone earthquakes
continue past this, landward down to 60 km; therefore, the slab has not
melted away!

Petrology
In a subduction zone, loss of water from the subducted slab induces partial
melting of the overriding mantle and generates low-density, calc-alkaline
magma that buoyantly rises to intrude and be extruded through the
lithosphere of the overriding plate. Most of the water carried downwards
by the slab is contained in hydrous (waterbearing) minerals, such
as mica, amphibole, or serpentinite minerals. Water is lost from the
subducted plate when the temperature and pressure become sufficient to
break down these minerals and release their water content. The water rises
into the wedge of mantle overlying the slab and lowers the melting point
of mantle rock to the point where magma is generated.[1]: 5.3
While there is wide agreement on the general mechanism, research
continues on the explanation for focused volcanism along a narrow arc
some distance from the trench.[1]: 4.2 [14] The distance from the trench to
the volcanic arc is greater for slabs subducting at a shallower angle, and
this suggests that magma generation takes place when the slab reached a
critical depth for the breakdown of an abundant hydrous mineral. This
would produce an ascending "hydrous curtain" that accounts for focused
volcanism along the volcanic arc. However, some models suggest that
water is continuously released from the slab from shallow depths down to
70 to 300 kilometers (43 to 186 mi), and much of the water released at
shallow depths produces serpentinization of the overlying mantle
wedge.[1]: 4.2.42 According to one model, only about 18 to 37 percent of the
water content is released at sufficient depth to produce arc magmatism.
The volcanic arc is then interpreted as the depth at which the degree of
melting becomes great enough to allow the magma to separate from its
source rock.[5]
It is now known that the subducting slab may be located anywhere from
60 to 173 kilometers (37 to 107 mi) below the volcanic arc, rather than a
single characteristic depth of around 120 kilometers (75 mi), which
requires more elaborate models of arc magmatism. For example, water
released from the slab at moderate depths might react with amphibole
minerals in the lower part of the mantle wedge to produce waterrich
chlorite. This chlorite-rich mantle rock is then dragged downwards by the
subducting slab, and eventually breaks down to become the source of arc
magmatism.[4] The location of the arc depends on the angle and rate of
subduction, which determine where hydrous minerals break down and
where the released water lowers the melting point of the overlying mantle
wedge enough for
melting.[15]

The location of the volcanic arc may be determined by the presence of a

cool shallow corner at the tip of the mantle wedge, where the mantle rock
is cooled by both the overlying plate and the slab. Not only does the cool
shallow corner suppress melting, but its high stiffness hinders the ascent
of any magma that is formed. Arc volcanism takes place where the slab
descends out from under the cool shallow corner, allowing magma to be
generated and rise through warmer, less stiff mantle
rock.[14]

Magma may be generated over a broad area but become focused into a
narrow volcanic arc by a permeability barrier at the base of the overriding
plate. Numerical simulations suggest that crystallization of rising magma
creates this barrier, causing the remaining magma to pool in a narrow band
at the apex of the barrier. This narrow band corresponds to the overlying
volcanic arc.[16]

VOLCANIC ARC
A volcanic arc (also known as a magmatic arc is a belt of volcanoes
formed above
a subducting oceanic tectonic plate,[2] with the belt arranged in an arc
shape as seen from above. Volcanic arcs typically parallel an oceanic
trench, with the arc located further from the subducting plate than the
trench. The oceanic plate is saturated with water, mostly in the form of
hydrous minerals such
as micas, amphiboles, and serpentine minerals. As the oceanic plate is
subducted, it is subjected to increasing pressure and temperature with
increasing depth. The heat and pressure break down the hydrous minerals
in the plate, releasing water into the overlying mantle.
Volatiles such as water drastically lower the melting point of the mantle,
causing some of the mantle to melt and form magma at depth under the
overriding plate. The magma ascends to form an arc of volcanoes parallel
to the subduction zone.
Volcanic arcs are distinct from volcanic chains formed over hotspots in
the middle of a tectonic plate. Volcanoes often form one after another as
the plate moves over the hotspot, and so the volcanoes progress in age
from one end of the chain to the other. The Hawaiian
Islands form a typical hotspot chain, with the older islands to the
northwest and Hawaii Island itself, which is just 400,000 years old, at the
southeast end of the chain over the hotspot. Volcanic arcs do not generally
exhibit such a simple agepattern.
There are two types of volcanic arcs:

• Intraoceanic arcs (primitive arcs) form when oceanic crust

subducts beneath other oceanic crust on an adjacent plate,
creating a volcanic island arc.
 • continental arcs form when oceanic crust subducts beneath
continental crust on an adjacent plate, creating an arc-shaped
mountain belt.
In some situations, a single subduction zone may show both aspects along
its length, as part of a plate subducts beneath a continent and part beneath
adjacent oceanic crust. The
Aleutian Islands and adjoining Alaskan Peninsula are an example of
such a subduction zone.
The active front of a volcanic arc is the belt where volcanism develops at
a given time. Active fronts may move over time (millions of years),
changing their distance from the oceanic trench as well as their width.

Volcanic arc formation along a subducting plate

ISLAND ARC
Island arcs are long chains of active volcanoes with intense seismic
activity found along convergent tectonic plate boundaries. Most island
arcs originate on oceanic crust and have resulted from the descent of the
lithosphere into the mantle along the subduction zone. They are the
principal way by which continental growth is

achieved.[1]

The Ryukyu Islands form an

island arc
Island arcs can either be active or inactive based on their seismicity and
presence of volcanoes. Active arcs are ridges of recent volcanoes with an
associated deep seismic zone. They also possess a distinct curved form, a
chain of active or recently extinct volcanoes, a deep-sea trench, and a large
negative Bouguer anomaly on the convex side of the volcanic arc. The
small positive gravity anomaly associated with volcanic arcs has been
interpreted by many authors as due to the presence of dense volcanic rocks
beneath the arc. Inactive arcs are a chain of islands which contains older
volcanic and volcaniclastic
rocks.[2]
The curved shape of many volcanic chains and the angle of the descending
lithosphere are related.[3] If the oceanic part of the plate is represented by
the ocean floor on the convex side of the arc, and if the zone of flexing
occurs beneath the submarine trench, then the deflected part of the plate
coincides approximately with the Benioff zone beneath most arcs.

Location
Most modern island arcs are near the continental
margins (particularly in the northern and western margins of the Pacific
Ocean). However, no direct evidence from within the arcs shows that they
have always existed at their present position with respect to the continents,
although evidence from some continental margins suggests that some arcs
may have migrated toward the continents during the late Mesozoic or
early Cenozoic. They are also found at oceanic-oceanic convergence
zones, in which case the older plate will subduct under the younger one.
The movement of the island arcs towards the continent could be possible
if, at some point, the ancient Benioff
zones dipped toward the present ocean rather than toward the continent,
as in most arcs today. This will have resulted in the loss of ocean floor
between the arc and the continent, and consequently, in the migration of
the arc during spreading episodes.
The fracture zones in which some active island arcs terminate may be
interpreted in terms of plate tectonics as resulting from movement along
transform faults, which are plate margins where the crust is neither being
consumed nor generated. Thus, the present location of these inactive
island chains is due to the present pattern of lithospheric plates. However,
their volcanic history, which indicates that they are fragments of older
island arcs, is not necessarily related to the present plate pattern and may
be due to differences in position of plate margins in the past.
A fracture zone is a linear feature on the ocean floor— often hundreds,
even thousands of kilometres long—resulting from the action of offset
midocean ridge axis segments. They are a consequence of plate
tectonics. Lithospheric plates on either side of an active transform fault
move in opposite directions;
Tectonic formation
Understanding the source of heat that causes the melting of the mantle
was a contentious problem. Researchers believed that the heat was
produced through friction at the top of the slab. However, this is unlikely
because the viscosity of
the asthenosphere decreases with increasing temperature, and at the
temperatures required for partial fusion, the asthenosphere would have
such a low viscosity that shear melting could not occur.
It is now believed that water acts as the primary agent that drives partial
melting beneath arcs. It has been shown that the amount of water present
in the downgoing slab is related to the melting temperature of the mantle.
The greater the amount of water present, the more the melting temperature
of the mantle is reduced. This water is released during the transformation
of minerals as pressure increases, with the mineral carrying the most water
being serpentinite.
These metamorphic mineral reactions cause the dehydration of the upper
part of the slab as the hydrated slab sinks. Heat is also transferred to it
from the surrounding asthenosphere. As heat is transferred to the slab,
temperature gradients are established such that the asthenosphere in the
vicinity of the slab becomes cooler and more viscous than surrounding
areas, particularly near the upper part of the slab. This more viscous
asthenosphere is then dragged down with the slab causing less viscous
mantle to flow in behind it. It is the interaction of this down-welling
mantle with aqueous fluids rising from the sinking slab that is thought to
produce partial melting of the mantle as it crosses its wet solidus. In
addition, some melts may result from the up-welling of hot mantle
material within the mantle wedge.[9] If hot material rises quickly enough
so that little heat is lost, the reduction in pressure may cause pressure
release or decompression partial melting.
On the subducting side of the island arc is a deep and narrow oceanic
trench, which is the trace at the Earth's surface of the boundary between
the down-going and overriding plates. This trench is created by the
downward gravitational pull of the relatively dense subducting plate on
the leading edge of the plate.
Multiple earthquakes occur along this subduction boundary with the
seismic hypocenters located at increasing depth under the island arc:
these quakes define the Benioff
zone.[10][11]

Island arcs can be formed in intra-oceanic settings, or from the fragments

of continental crust that have migrated away from an adjacent continental
land mass or at subductionrelated volcanoes active at the margins of
continents.

Two plates collide and create an island arc between them in the
process.
Features
Below are some of the generalized features present in most island arcs.
Fore-arc: This region comprises the trench, the accretionary prism, and
the fore-arc basin. A bump from the trench in the oceanward side of the
system is present (Barbados in the Lesser Antilles is an example). The
fore-arc basin forms between the fore-arc ridge and the island arc; it is a
region of undisturbed flatbedded sedimentation.
Trenches: These are the deepest features of ocean basins; the deepest
being the Mariana trench (approximately 11,000 m or 36,000 ft). They are
formed by flexing of the oceanic lithosphere, developing on the ocean side
of island arcs. Back-arc basin: They are also referred to as marginal seas
and are formed in the inner, concave side of island arcs bounded by back-
arc ridges. They develop in response to tensional tectonics due to rifting
of an existing island arc.
Benioff zone or Wadati-Benioff zone: This is a plane that dips under the
overriding plate where intense volcanic activity occurs, which is defined
by the location of seismic events below the arc. Earthquakes occur from
near surface to ~660 km depth. The dip of Benioff zones ranges from 30°
to near vertical.[12]
An ocean basin may be formed between the continental margin and the
island arcs on the concave side of the arc. These basins have a crust which
is either oceanic or intermediate between the normal oceanic crust and
that typical of continents; heat flow in the basins is higher than in normal
continental or oceanic areas.[2]
Some arcs, such as the
Aleutians, pass laterally into the continental shelf on the concave side of
the arc,[13] while most of the arcs are separated from the continental crust.
Movement between two lithospheric plates explains the major features of
active island arcs. The island arc and small ocean basin are situated on the
overlying plate which meets the descending plate containing normal
oceanic crust along the Benioff zone. The sharp bending of the oceanic
plate downward
produces a trench.[14]

A schematic cross-section of an island arc from trench to backarc basin

ISLAND ARC AND TRENCH

 MAP VIEW
Island

arcs and trenches are major structural features, together with oceanic
ridges, of ocean basins. As the name implies, island arcs are typically a
curving chain of volcanic islands occurring around the margin of ocean
basins. The curvature and the volcanic nature are important characteristic
features. The arc is convex toward the ocean and concave toward the
continent with a deep trench running parallel to the arc along the convex
(ocean) side.
Arcs and trenches are hundreds of miles long. Some well-known examples
of island arcs are Japan, Aleutian Islands of Alaska, Mariana Islands, all
of which are in the Pacific, and the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.
The abundance of volcanic rocks around the Pacific Ocean has led to the
designation of the Pacific margin as a “Ring of Fire”. Most of the world’s
active volcanoes are in this belt.
 CROSSSECTION
Not all volcanic chains are island
arcs, however, and not all island arcs
are “islands”. For example, the
Hawaiian Islands are an example of a
linear chain of volcanoes in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean that is not an
island arc. Some ‘island" arcs have
become parts of the continent; the Cascade Range of
Washington and Oregon
(remember Mt. St. Helens) and the Andes Mountains of South America
are examples of
“island” arcs that are part of continents.
The rock type of island arcs is typically andesite (named after the Andes
Mountains), rather than the basalt of oceanic crust. Andesite forms by
partial melting of basaltic crust and oceanic sediments as both are
subducted into the trench. Thus, the volcano is composed partly of melted
basalt and partly of melted sediments, a combination that has the mineral
composition of andesite rock. Trenches are the sites where old oceanic
crust plunges into the mantle to be melted and destroyed. This process is
called subduction. The oceanic crust originally formed at the oceanic
ridge from molten mantle material. In returning to the mantle at a
subduction zone oceanic crust completes the cycle from mantle to ocean
crust and back to the mantle.

OCEANIC TRENCH
Oceanic trenches are prominent, long,
narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically 50
to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) below
the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, but can be thousands of
kilometers in length. There are about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) of oceanic
trenches worldwide, mostly around the Pacific Ocean, but also in the
eastern Indian Ocean and a few other locations. The greatest ocean depth
measured is in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, at a depth of
10,920 m (35,830 ft) below sea level.
Oceanic trenches are a feature of the Earth's distinctive plate tectonics.
They mark the locations of convergent plate boundaries, along which
lithospheric plates move towards each other at rates that vary from a few
millimeters to over ten centimeters per year. Oceanic lithosphere moves
into trenches at a global rate of about 3 km2 (1.2 sq mi) per year.[1] A
trench marks the position at which the
flexed, subducting slab begins to descend beneath another lithospheric
slab. Trenches are generally parallel to and about 200 km (120 mi) from
a volcanic arc.
Much of the fluid trapped in sediments of the subducting slab returns to
the surface at the oceanic trench, producing mud volcanoes and cold
seeps. These support unique biomes based on chemotrophic microorganis
ms. There is concern that plastic debris is accumulating in trenches
and threatening these communities.
Morphology

Cross section of an oceanic trench formed along an oceanicoceanic

convergent boundary

Oceanic trench formed along an oceanic-oceanic convergent boundary

Oceanic trenches are 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and have
an asymmetric V-
shape, with the steeper slope (8 to 20 degrees) on the inner (overriding)
side of the trench and the gentler slope (around 5 degrees) on the outer
(subducting) side of the trench. The bottom of the trench marks the
boundary between the subducting and overriding plates, known as the
basal plate boundary shear[20] or the subduction décollement.[2] The depth
of the trench depends on the starting depth of the oceanic lithosphere as it
begins its plunge into the trench, the angle at which the slab plunges, and
the amount of sedimentation in the trench. Both starting depth and
subduction angle are greater for older oceanic lithosphere, which is
reflected in the deep trenches of the western Pacific.
Here the bottoms of the
Marianas and the Tonga-
Kermadec trenches are up to 10– 11 kilometers (6.2–6.8 mi) below sea
level. In the eastern Pacific, where the subducting oceanic lithosphere is
much younger, the depth of the PeruChile trench is around 7 to 8
kilometers (4.3 to 5.0 mi).
Though narrow, oceanic trenches are remarkably long and continuous,
forming the largest linear depressions on earth. An individual trench can
be thousands of kilometers long. Most trenches are convex towards the
subducting slab, which is attributed to the spherical geometry of the Earth.
The trench asymmetry reflects the different physical mechanisms that
determine the inner and outer slope angle. The outer slope angle of the
trench is determined by the bending radius of the subducting slab, as
determined by its elastic thickness. Since oceanic lithosphere thickens
with age, the outer slope angle is ultimately determined by the age of the
subducting slab. The inner slope angle is determined by the angle of
repose of the overriding plate edge. This reflects frequent earthquakes
along the trench that prevent oversteepening of the inner slope.
As the subducting plate approaches the trench, it bends slightly upwards
before beginning its plunge into the depths. As a result, the outer trench
slope is bounded by an outer trench high. This is subtle, often only tens
of meters high, and is typically located a few tens of kilometers from the
trench axis. On the outer slope itself, where the plate begins to bend
downwards into the trench, the upper part of the subducting slab is broken
by bending faults that give the outer trench slope a horst and graben
topography. The formation of these bending faults is suppressed where
oceanic ridges or large seamounts are subducting into the trench, but the
bending faults cut right across smaller seamounts. Where the subducting
slab is only thinly veneered with sediments, the outer slope will often
show seafloor spreading ridges oblique to the horst and graben ridges.
TRANSFORM FAULT
A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate
boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal.[1] It ends
abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another
transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction zone.[2] A transform fault is
a special case of a strike-slip fault that also forms a plate boundary.
Most such faults are found in oceanic crust, where they accommodate the
lateral offset between segments of divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag
pattern. This is a result of oblique seafloor spreading where the direction
of motion is not perpendicular to the trend of the overall divergent
boundary. A smaller number of such faults are found on land, although
these are generally better-known, such as the San Andreas Fault and North
Anatolian Fault.

Diagram showing
a transform fault with two plates moving in opposite
directions

Transform boundaries are also known as conservative plate boundaries

because they involve no addition or loss of lithosphere at the
Earth's surface.

Geophysicist and geologist John Tuzo Wilson recognized that the offsets
of oceanic ridges by faults do not follow the classical pattern of an offset
fence or geological marker in Reid's rebound theory of faulting,[4] from
which the sense of slip is derived. The new class of faults,[5] called
transform faults, produce slip in the opposite direction from what one
would surmise from the standard interpretation of an offset geological
feature. Slip along transform faults does not increase the distance between
the ridges it separates; the distance remains constant in earthquakes
because the ridges are spreading centers. This hypothesis was confirmed
in a study of the fault plane solutions that showed the slip on transform
faults points in the opposite direction than classical interpretation would
suggest
Difference between transform and transcurrent faults
Transform faults are closely related to transcurrent faults and are
commonly confused. Both types of fault are strike-slip or side-to-side in
movement; nevertheless, transform faults always end at a junction with
another plate boundary, while transcurrent faults may die out without a
junction with another fault. Finally, transform faults form a tectonic plate
boundary, while transcurrent faults do not.

Transform fault
Transcurrent fault

Mechanics
Faults in general are focused areas of deformation or strain, which are the
response of built-
up stresses in the form of compression, tension, or shear stress in rock at
the surface or deep in the Earth's subsurface. Transform faults specifically
accommodate lateral strain by transferring displacement between mid-
ocean ridges or subduction zones. They also act as the plane of weakness,
which may result in splitting in rift zones.
Transform faults and divergent boundaries
Transform faults are commonly found linking segments of divergent
boundaries (midoceanic ridges or spreading centres). These mid-oceanic
ridges are where new seafloor is constantly created through the upwelling
of
new basaltic magma. With new seafloor being pushed and pulled out, the
older seafloor slowly slides away from the midoceanic ridges toward the
continents. Although separated only by tens of kilometers, this separation
between segments of the ridges causes portions of the seafloor to push
past each other in opposing directions. This lateral movement of seafloors
past each other is where transform faults are currently active.
 Transform fault
(the red lines)

Spreading center and strips

Transform faults move differently from a strike-slip fault at the mid-
oceanic ridge. Instead of the ridges moving away from each other, as they
do in other strike-slip faults, transform-fault ridges remain in the same,
fixed locations, and the new ocean seafloor created at the ridges is pushed
away from the ridge. Evidence of this motion can be found in
paleomagnetic striping on the seafloor.
A paper written by geophysicist Taras Gerya theorizes that the creation of
the transform faults between the ridges of the midoceanic ridge is
attributed to rotated and stretched sections of the mid-oceanic ridge.[7]
This occurs over a long period of time with the spreading center or ridge
slowly deforming from a straight line to a curved line. Finally, fracturing
along these planes forms transform faults. As this takes place, the fault
changes from a normal fault with extensional stress to a strike-slip fault
with lateral stress.[8] In the study done by Bonatti and
Crane,[who?] peridotite and gabbr o rocks were discovered in the edges of
the transform ridges. These rocks are created deep inside the Earth's
mantle and then rapidly exhumed to the surface.[8] This evidence helps to
prove that new seafloor is being created at the mid-oceanic ridges and
further supports the theory of plate tectonics.
Active transform faults are between two tectonic structures or faults.
Fracture zones represent the previously active transform-fault lines, which
have since passed the active transform zone and are being pushed toward
the continents. These elevated ridges on the ocean floor can be traced for
hundreds of miles and in some cases even from one continent across an
ocean to the other continent.
Examples:
The most prominent examples of the mid-oceanic ridge transform zones
are in the Atlantic Ocean between South
America and Africa. Known as the St. Paul, Romanche, Chain, and
Ascension fracture zones, these areas have deep, easily identifiable
transform faults and ridges. Other locations include: the East Pacific
Ridge located in the South Eastern Pacific Ocean, which meets up with
San
Andreas Fault to the North.
Transform faults are not limited to oceanic crust and spreading centers;
many of them are on continental margins. The best example is the San
Andreas
Fault on the Pacific coast of the United States. The San Andreas Fault
links the East Pacific Rise off the West coast of Mexico (Gulf of
California) to the Mendocino Triple
Junction (Part of the Juan de Fuca plate) off the coast of the Northwestern
United States, making it a ridge-to-transformstyle fault.[5] The formation
of the San Andreas Fault system occurred fairly recently during the
Oligocene Period between 34 million and 24 million years ago.[9] During
this period, the Farallon plate, followed by the Pacific plate, collided into
the North American plate.[9] The collision led to the subduction of the
Farallon plate underneath the North American plate. Once the spreading
center separating the Pacific and the Farallon plates was subducted
beneath the North American plate, the San
Andreas Continental TransformFault system was created.[9]

The Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana rise dramatically beside

the Alpine
Fault on New Zealand's West Coast. About 500 kilometres (300 mi)
long; northwest at top.
In New Zealand, the South Island's alpine fault is a transform fault for
much of its length. This has resulted in the folded land of the
Southland Syncline being split into an eastern and western section
several hundred kilometres apart. The majority of the syncline is
found in Southland and The Catlins in the island's southeast, but a
smaller section is also present in the Tasman District in the island's
northwest.
Other examples include:
• Middle East's Dead Sea Transform fault

• Pakistan's Chaman Fault

• Turkey's North Anatolian Fault

• North America's Queen Charlotte Fault

• Myanmar's Sagaing Fault

MID-OCEAN RIDGE
A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed
by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of about 2,600 meters
(8,500 ft) and rises about 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) above the deepest
portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading
takes place along a divergent plate boundary.
The rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the
crest of the mid-ocean ridge and its width in an ocean basin.
Mid-ocean ridges occur along divergent plate boundaries, where new
ocean floor is created as the Earth's tectonic plates spread apart. As
the plates separate, molten rock rises to the seafloor, producing
enormous volcanic eruptions of basalt.
The production of
new seafloor and oceanic lithosphere results from mantle upwelling
in response to plate separation. The melt rises as magma at the
linear weakness between the separating plates, and emerges as
lava, creating new oceanic crust and lithosphere upon cooling.
The first discovered midocean ridge was the MidAtlantic Ridge,
which is a spreading center that bisects the North and South
Atlantic basins; hence the origin of the name 'mid-ocean ridge'.
Most oceanic spreading centers are not in the middle of their
hosting ocean basis but regardless, are traditionally called mid-
ocean ridges. Midocean ridges around the globe are linked by plate
tectonic boundaries and the trace of the ridges across the ocean
floor appears similar to the seam of a baseball. The mid-ocean
ridge system thus is the longest mountain range on Earth, reaching
about 65,000 km (40,000 mi).

Mid-ocean ridge cross-

section

Global system
The mid-ocean ridges of the world are connected and form the
Ocean Ridge, a single global mid-oceanic ridge system that is part
of every ocean, making it the longest mountain range in the world.
The continuous mountain range is 65,000 km (40,400 mi) long
(several times longer than the Andes, the longest continental
mountain range), and the total length of the oceanic ridge system
is 80,000 km (49,700 mi) long.

At the spreading center on a mid-ocean ridge, the depth of the

seafloor is approximately 2,600 meters
(8,500 ft).[2][3] On the ridge flanks, the depth of the seafloor (or the
height of a location on a mid-ocean ridge above a base-level) is
correlated with its age (age of the lithosphere where depth is
measured). The depth-age relation can be modeled by the cooling
of a lithosphere plate[4][5] or mantle halfspace.[6] A good
approximation is that the depth of the seafloor at a location on a
spreading midocean ridge is proportional to the square root of the
age of the seafloor.[6] The overall shape of ridges results from Pratt
isostacy: close to the ridge axis, there is a hot, low-density mantle
supporting the oceanic crust. As the oceanic plate cools, away from
the ridge axis, the oceanic mantle lithosphere (the colder, denser
part of the mantle that, together with the crust, comprises the
oceanic plates) thickens, and the density increases. Thus older
seafloor is underlain by denser material and is deeper.

Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to

seafloor spreading.
Rates can be computed by mapping marine magnetic anomalies
that span mid-
ocean ridges. As crystallized basalt extruded at a ridge’s axis cools
below Curie points of appropriate irontitanium oxides, magnetic
field directions parallel to the Earth's magnetic field are recorded in
those oxides. The orientations of the field preserved in the oceanic
crust comprise a record of directions of the Earth's magnetic field
with time. Because the field has reversed directions at known
intervals throughout its history, the pattern of geomagnetic
reversals in the ocean crust can be used as an indicator of age;
given the crustal age and distance from the ridge axis, spreading
rates can be calculated.
Spreading rates range from
approximately 10–
200 mm/yr.[2][3] Slowspreading ridges such as the Mid-Atlantic
Ridge have spread much less far
(showing a steeper profile) than faster ridges such as the East
Pacific Rise (gentle profile) for the same amount of time and cooling
and consequent bathymetric
deepening.[2] Slow-spreading ridges (less than 40 mm/yr) generally
have large rift valleys, sometimes as wide as 10–20 km (6.2–12.4
mi), and very rugged terrain at the ridge crest that can have relief of
up to 1,000 m
(3,300 ft).[2][3][9][10] By

contrast, fast-spreading ridges (greater than 90 mm/yr) such as the

East Pacific Rise lack rift valleys.
The spreading rate of the North Atlantic Ocean is ~
25 mm/yr, while in
the Pacific region, it is 80– 145 mm/yr.[11] The highest known rate
is over 200 mm/yr in the Miocene on the East Pacific Rise.[12]
Ridges that spread at rates <20 mm/yr are referred to as ultraslow
spreading ridges[3][13] (e.g., the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean
and the Southwest Indian Ridge).
The spreading center or axis commonly connects to a transform
fault oriented at right angles to the axis. The flanks of mid-ocean
ridges are in many places marked by the inactive scars of transform
faults called fracture zones. At faster spreading rates the axes
often
display overlapping spreading centers that lack
connecting transform faults.[2][14] The depth of the axis changes in
a systematic way with shallower depths between offsets such as
transform faults and overlapping spreading centers dividing the
axis into segments. One hypothesis for different along-axis depths
is variations in magma supply to the spreading
center.[2] Ultra-slow
spreading ridges form both magmatic and amagmatic (currently
lack volcanic activity) ridge segments without transform
faults.
Volcanism
Mid-ocean ridges exhibit active volcanism and seismic
ity.[3] The oceanic crust is in a constant state of 'renewal' at the
mid-ocean ridges by the processes of seafloor spreading
and plate tectonics. New magma steadily emerges onto the
ocean floor and intrudes into the existing ocean crust at and near
rifts along the ridge axes. The rocks making up the crust below
the seafloor are youngest along the axis of the ridge and age with
increasing distance from that axis. New magma of basalt
composition emerges at and near the axis because of
decompression melting in the underlying Earth's
mantle.[15] The isentropic up welling solid mantle material exceeds
the solidus temperature and melts. The crystallized magma
forms a new crust of basalt known as MORB for mid-ocean ridge
basalt, and gabbro below it in the lower oceanic
crust.[16] Mid-ocean ridge basalt is a tholeiitic basalt and is low
in incompatible elements. Hydrothermal vents fueled by magmatic
and volcanic heat are a common feature at oceanic spreading
centers.[19][20] A feature of the elevated ridges is their relatively high
heat flow values, ranging from between 1 μcal/cm2s to about
10
μcal/cm2s. (Micro calories pe r centimeter squared per
second)
Most crust in the ocean basins is less than 200 million years old,
which is much younger than the 4.54 billion year age of the Earth.
This fact reflects the process of lithosphere recycling into the
Earth's mantle during subduction. As the oceanic crust
and lithosphere moves away from the ridge axis, the peridotite in
the underlying mantle lithosphere cools and becomes more rigid.
The crust and the relatively rigid peridotite below it make up the
oceanic lithosphere, which sits above the less rigid and viscous
asthenosphere.

Driving mechanisms
The oceanic lithosphere is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the
lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at ocean
trenches. Two
processes, ridgepush and slab pull, are thought to be responsible
for spreading at mid-ocean ridges. Ridge push refers to the
gravitation sliding of the ocean plate that is raised above the hotter
asthenosphere, thus creating a body force causing sliding of the
plate downslope. In slab pull the weight of a tectonic plate being
subducted (pulled) below an overlying plate at a subduction zone
drags the rest of the plate along behind it. The slab pull mechanism
is considered to be contributing more than the ridge push.
A process previously proposed to contribute to plate motion and the
formation of new oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges is the "mantle
conveyor" due to deep convection (see image).[27][28] However,
some studies have shown that the upper mantle (asthenosphere)
is too plastic (flexible) to generate enough friction to pull the
tectonic plate along.[29][30] Moreover, mantle upwelling that causes
magma to form beneath the ocean ridges appears to involve only
its upper 400 km (250 mi), as deduced from seismic
tomography and observations of the seismic discontinuity in the
upper mantle at about 400 km
(250 mi). On the other hand, some of the world's largest tectonic
plates such as the North American
Plate and South American plate are in motion, yet only are being
subducted in restricted locations such as the Lesser Antilles
Arc and Scotia Arc, pointing to action by the ridge push body force
on these plates. Computer modeling of the plates and mantle
motions suggest that plate motion and mantle convection are not
connected, and the main plate driving force is slab pull.

Impact on global sea level

Increased rates of seafloor spreading (i.e. the rate of expansion of

the mid-ocean ridge) have caused the global (eustatic) sea level to
rise over very long timescales (millions of years). Increased
seafloor spreading means that the mid-ocean ridge will then
expand and form a broader ridge with decreased average depth,
taking up more space in the ocean basin. This displaces the
overlying ocean and causes sea levels to rise.
Sea level change can be attributed to other factors (thermal
expansion, ice melting, and mantle
convection creating dynamic topography). Over very long
timescales, however, it is the result of changes in the volume of the
ocean basins which are, in turn, affected by rates of seafloor
spreading along the mid-ocean
ridges.[36]

The 100 to 170 meters higher sea level of the Cretaceous Period
(144–65 Ma) is partly attributed to plate tectonics because thermal
expansion and the absence of ice sheets only account for some of
the extra sea level.

Impact on seawater chemistry and carbonate deposition

Seafloor spreading on midocean ridges is a global scale ion-
exchange system. Hydrother mal vents at spreading centres
introduce various amounts
of iron, sulfur, manganese, si licon, and other elements into the
ocean, some of which are recycled into the ocean crust. Helium-3,
an isotope that accompanies volcanism from the mantle, is emitted
by hydrothermal vents and can be detected in plumes within the
ocean.
Fast spreading rates will expand the mid-ocean ridge causing
basalt reactions with seawater to happen more rapidly. The
magnesium/calcium ratio will be lower because more magnesium
ions are being removed from seawater and consumed by the rock,
and more calcium ions are being removed from the rock and
released into seawater. Hydrothermal activity at the ridge crest is
efficient in removing magnesium.[39] A lower Mg/Ca ratio favors the
precipitation of low-
Mg calcite polymorphs of cal cium carbonate (calcite seas).
Slow spreading at mid-ocean ridges has the opposite effect and will
result in a higher Mg/Ca ratio favoring the precipitation of aragonite
and high-Mg calcite polymorphs of calcium
carbonate (aragonite seas).[41]

Experiments show that most modern high-Mg calcite organisms

would have been low-Mg calcite in past calcite seas,[42] meaning
that the Mg/Ca ratio in an organism's skeleton varies with the
Mg/Ca ratio of the seawater in which it was grown. The mineralogy
of reefbuilding and sedimentproducing organisms is thus regulated
by chemical reactions occurring along the mid-ocean ridge, the rate
of which is controlled by the rate of sea-floor spreading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mid-ocean_ridge

SEA FLOOR SPREADING Seafloor spreading or Seafloor

spread is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new
oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually
moves away from the ridge.

History of study
Earlier theories by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du
Toit of continental
drift postulated that continents in motion "plowed" through the fixed
and immovable seafloor. The idea that the seafloor itself moves
and also carries the continents with it as it spreads from a central
rift axis was proposed by Harold
Hammond
Hess from Princeton
University and Robert
Dietz of the U.S. Naval
Electronics Laboratory in San Diego in the 1960s.[1][2] The
phenomenon is known today as plate tectonics. In locations where
two plates move apart, at mid-ocean ridges, new seafloor is
continually formed during 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. The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges
is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones, rather than magma
pressure, although there is typically significant magma activity at
spreading ridges.[3] Plates that are not subducting are driven by
gravity sliding off the elevated mid-ocean ridges a process called
ridge push.[4] At a spreading center, basaltic magma rises up the
fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form
new seabed. Hydrothermal vents are common at spreading
centers. Older rocks will be found farther away from the spreading
zone while younger rocks will be found nearer to the spreading
zone.
Spreading rate is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to
seafloor spreading. (The rate at which new oceanic lithosphere is
added to each tectonic plate on either side of a mid-ocean ridge is
the spreading halfrate and is equal to half of the spreading rate).
Spreading rates determine if the ridge is fast, intermediate, or slow.
As a general rule, fast ridges have spreading (opening) rates of
more than
90 mm/year. Intermediate ridges have a spreading rate of 40–90
mm/year while slow spreading ridges have a rate less than
40 mm/year.[5][6][7]: 2 The
highest known rate was over
200 mm/yr during the Miocene on the East
[8]
Pacific Rise.
In the 1960s, the past record of geomagnetic reversals of Earth's
magnetic field was noticed by observing magnetic stripe
"anomalies" on the ocean floor.[9][10] This results in broadly evident
"stripes" from which the past magnetic field polarity can be inferred
from data gathered with a magnetometer towed on the sea surface
or from an aircraft. The stripes on one side of the mid-ocean ridge
were the mirror image of those on the other side. By identifying a
reversal with a known age and measuring the distance of that
reversal from the spreading center, the spreading half-rate could
be computed.
 magnetic stripes formed during
seafloor spreading
In some locations spreading rates have been found to be
asymmetric; the half rates differ on each side of the ridge crest by
about five percent.[11][12] This is thought due to temperature
gradients in the asthenosphere from mantle plumes near the
spreading center
Spreading center
Seafloor spreading occurs at spreading centers, distributed along
the crests of mid-ocean ridges. Spreading centers end in transform
faults or in overlapping spreading center offsets. A spreading
center includes a seismically active plate boundary zone a few
kilometers to tens of kilometers wide, a crustal accretion zone
within the boundary zone where the ocean crust is youngest, and
an instantaneous plate boundary - a line within the crustal accretion
zone demarcating the two separating plates. Within the crustal
accretion zone is a 12 km-wide neovolcanic zone where active
volcanism occurs.
Incipient spreading

In the general case, seafloor spreading starts as a rift in a

continental land mass, similar to the Red Sea-East
Africa Rift System today.[16] The process starts by heating at the
base of the continental crust which causes it to become more
plastic and less dense.
Because less dense objects rise in relation to denser objects, the
area being heated becomes a broad dome (see isostasy). As the
crust bows upward, fractures occur that gradually grow into rifts.
The typical rift system consists of three rift arms at approximately
120-degree angles. These areas are named triple junctions and
can be found in several places across the world today. The
separated margins of the continents evolve to form passive
margins. Hess' theory was that new seafloor is formed when
magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid-ocean ridge.

If spreading continues past the incipient stage described above,

two of the rift arms will open while the third arm stops opening and
becomes a
'failed rift' or aulacogen. As the two active rifts continue to open,
eventually the continental crust is attenuated as far as it will stretch.
At this point basaltic oceanic crust and upper mantle lithosphere
begins to form between the separating continental fragments.
When one of the rifts opens into the existing ocean, the rift system
is flooded with seawater and becomes a new sea. The Red Sea is
an example of a new arm of the sea. The East African rift was
thought to be a failed arm that was opening more slowly than the
other two arms, but in 2005
the Ethiopian Afar

Geophysical Lithospheric Experiment[17] reported that in the Afar

region, September 2005, a 60 km fissure opened as wide as eight
meters.[18] During this period of initial flooding the new sea is
sensitive to changes in climate and eustasy. As a result, the new
sea will evaporate (partially or completely) several times before the
elevation of the rift valley has been lowered to the point that the sea
becomes stable. During this period of evaporation large evaporite
deposits will be made in the rift valley. Later these deposits have
the potential to become hydrocarbon seals and are of particular
interest to petroleum geologists.

Seafloor spreading can stop during the process, but if it continues

to the point that the continent is completely severed, then a new
ocean basin is created. The Red Sea has not yet completely split
Arabia from Africa, but a similar feature can be found on the other
side of Africa that has broken completely free. South America once
fit into the area of the Niger Delta. The Niger River has formed in
the failed rift arm of the triple junction.
Continued spreading and subduction

As new seafloor forms and spreads apart from the midocean ridge
it slowly cools over time. Older seafloor is, therefore, colder than
new seafloor, and older oceanic basins deeper than new oceanic
basins due to isostasy. If the diameter of the earth remains
relatively constant despite the production of new crust, a
mechanism must exist by which crust is also destroyed. The
destruction of oceanic crust occurs at subduction zones where
oceanic crust is forced under either continental crust or oceanic
crust. Today, the Atlantic basin is actively spreading at the Mid-
Atlantic Ridge. Only a small portion of the oceanic crust produced
in the Atlantic is subducted. However, the plates making up the
Pacific Ocean are experiencing subduction along many of their
boundaries which causes the volcanic activity in what has been
termed the Ring of Fire of the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific is also
home to one of the world's most active spreading centers (the East
Pacific Rise) with spreading rates of up to 145 +/- 4 mm/yr
between
the Pacific and Nazca plates.[20] The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a slow-
spreading center, while the East Pacific Rise is an example of fast
spreading. Spreading centers at slow and intermediate rates
exhibit a rift valley while at fast rates an axial high is found within
the crustal accretion zone.[6] The differences in spreading rates
affect not only the geometries of the ridges but also the
geochemistry of the basalts that are produced.[21] Since the new
oceanic basins are shallower than the old oceanic basins, the total
capacity of the world's ocean basins decreases during times of
active sea floor spreading. During the opening of the Atlantic
Ocean, sea level was so high that a Western Interior Seaway
formed across North America from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic
Ocean.

At the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (and in other mid-ocean ridges), material

from the upper mantle rises through the faults between oceanic
plates to form new crust as the plates move away from each other,
a phenomenon first observed as continental drift. When Alfred
Wegener first presented a hypothesis of continental drift in 1912,
he suggested that continents plowed through the ocean crust. This
was impossible: oceanic crust is both more dense and more rigid
than continental crust. Accordingly, Wegener's theory wasn't taken
very seriously, especially in the United States.
At first the driving force for spreading was argued to be
convection currents in the mantle.[22] Since then, it has been
shown that the motion of the continents is linked to seafloor
spreading by the theory of plate tectonics, which is driven by
convection that includes the crust itself as well.
The driver for seafloor spreading in plates with active
margins is the weight of the cool, dense, subducting slabs that
pull them along, or slab pull. The magmatism at the ridge is
considered to be passive upwelling, which is caused by the plates
being pulled apart under the weight of their own slabs.[4][23] This
can be thought of as analogous to a rug on a table with little
friction: when part of the rug is off of the table, its weight pulls the
rest of the rug down with it. However, the MidAtlantic ridge itself is
not bordered by plates that are being pulled into subduction
zones, except the minor subduction in the Lesser Antilles and
Scotia Arc. In this case the plates are sliding apart over the
mantle upwelling in the process of ridge push.

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. Mantle convection
is the slow, churning motion of Earth’s mantle. Convection currents
carry heat from the lower mantle and core to the lithosphere.
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. The less-dense material rises, often forming
a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor. Eventually, the crust
cracks. Hot magma fueled by mantle convection bubbles up to fill
these fractures and spills onto the crust. This bubbled-up magma
is cooled by frigid seawater to form igneous rock. This rock (basalt)
becomes a new part of

Earth’s crust. Mid-Ocean Ridges Seafloor spreading occurs along

mid-ocean ridges—large mountain ranges rising from the ocean
floor. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, for instance, separates the North
American plate from the Eurasian plate, and the South American
plate from the African plate. The East Pacific Rise is a mid-ocean
ridge that runs through the eastern Pacific Ocean and separates
the Pacific plate from the North American plate, the Cocos plate,
the

Nazca plate, and the Antarctic plate. The Southeast Indian Ridge
marks where the southern Indo-Australian plate forms a divergent
boundary with the Antarctic plate. Seafloor spreading is not
consistent at all mid-ocean ridges. Slowly spreading ridges are the
sites of tall, narrow underwater cliffs and mountains. Rapidly
spreading ridges have a much more gentle slopes. The Mid-Atlantic
Ridge, for instance, is a slow spreading center. It spreads 2-5
centimeters (.8-2 inches) every year and forms an ocean trench
about the size of the Grand Canyon. The East Pacific Rise, on the
other hand, is a fast-
spreading center. It spreads about 6-16 centimeters (3-6 inches)
every year. There is not an ocean trench at the East Pacific Rise,
because the seafloor spreading is too rapid for one to develop! The
newest, thinnest crust on Earth is located near the center of mid-
ocean ridge— the actual site of seafloor spreading. The age,
density, and thickness of oceanic crust increases with distance
from the mid-ocean ridge. Geomagnetic Reversals The magnetism
of mid-ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of
seafloor spreading in the early 20th century. Basalt, the once-
molten rock that makes up most new oceanic crust, is a fairly
magnetic substance, and scientists began using magnetometers to
measure the magnetism of the ocean floor in the 1950s. What they
discovered was that the magnetism of the ocean floor around mid-
ocean ridges was divided into matching

“stripes” on either side of the ridge. The specific magnetism of

basalt rock is determined by the Earth’s magnetic field when the
magma is cooling. Scientists determined that the same process
formed the perfectly symmetrical stripes on both side of a mid-
ocean ridge. The continual process of seafloor spreading
separated the stripes in an orderly pattern. Geographic Features
Oceanic crust slowly moves away from mid-ocean ridges and sites
of seafloor spreading. As it moves, it becomes cooler, more dense,
and more thick. Eventually, older oceanic crust encounters a
tectonic boundary with continental crust. In some cases, oceanic
crust encounters an active plate margin. An active plate margin is
an actual plate boundary, where oceanic crust and continental crust
crash into each other. Active plate margins are often the site of
earthquakes and volcanoes. Oceanic crust created by seafloor
spreading in the East Pacific Rise, for instance, may become part
of the Ring of Fire, the horseshoe-shaped pattern of volcanoes and
earthquake zones around the Pacific ocean basin. In other cases,
oceanic crust encounters a passive plate margin.
Passive margins are not plate boundaries, but areas where a single
tectonic plate transitions from oceanic lithosphere to continental
lithosphere. Passive margins are not sites of faults or subduction
zones. Thick layers of sediment overlay the transitional crust of a
passive margin. The oceanic crust of the Mid-Atlantic

Ridge, for instance, will either become part of the passive margin
on the North
American plate (on the east coast of North America) or the Eurasian
plate (on the west coast of Europe). New geographic features can
be created through seafloor spreading. The Red Sea, for example,
was created as the African plate and the Arabian plate tore away
from each other. Today, only the Sinai Peninsula connects the
Middle East (Asia) with North Africa. Eventually, geologists predict,
seafloor spreading will completely separate the two continents—
and join the Red and Mediterranean Seas. Mid-ocean ridges and
seafloor spreading can also influence sea levels. As oceanic crust
moves away from the shallow mid-ocean ridges, it cools and sinks
as it becomes more dense. This increases the volume of the ocean
basin and decreases the sea level. For instance, a mid-ocean ridge
system in Panthalassa—an ancient ocean that surrounded the
supercontinent Pangaea— contributed to shallower oceans and
higher sea levels in the Paleozoic era. Panthalassa was an early
form of the Pacific Ocean, which today experiences less seafloor
spreading and has a much less extensive midocean ridge system.
This helps explain why sea levels have fallen dramatically over the
past 80 million years. Seafloor spreading disproves an early part of
the theory of continental drift. Supporters of continental drift
originally theorized that the continents moved (drifted) through
unmoving oceans. Seafloor spreading proves that the ocean itself
is a site of tectonic activity. Keeping Earth in Shape Seafloor
spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. Subduction is another.
Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other
instead of spreading apart. At subduction zones, the edge of the
denser plate subducts, or slides, beneath the less-
dense one. 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Seafloor_spreading CONTINENTAL DRIFT
Continental drift is the hypothesis that the
Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each
other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed.[1] The
idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of
plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as
they ride on plates of the
Earth's lithosphere.[2]

The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put
forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. A pioneer of the modern view
of mobilism was the Austrian geologist Otto
Ampferer.[3][4] The concept was independently and more fully
developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but the hypothesis was
rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. The English
geologist Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle

convection for that mechanism.

Early history

Abraham Ortelius (Ortelius 1596), Theodor Christoph Lilienthal

(1756), Alexander von Humboldt (1801 and 1845), Antonio Snider-
Pellegrini (Snider-Pellegrini 1858), and others had noted earlier
that the shapes of continents on opposite sides of the
Atlantic
Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit
together.[7] W. J. Kious described Ortelius' thoughts in this way:[8]
Abraham Ortelius in his work Thesaurus Geographicus ...
suggested that the Americas were "torn away from Europe and
Africa ... by earthquakes and floods" and went on to say: "The
vestiges of the rupture reveal themselves if someone brings
forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of
the three [continents]."

In 1889, Alfred Russel Wallace remarked, "It was formerly a very

general belief, even amongst geologists, that the great features of
the earth's surface, no less than the smaller ones, were subject to
continual mutations, and that during the course of known geological
time the continents and great oceans had, again and again,
changed places with each other. He quotes Charles Lyell as
saying, "Continents, therefore, although permanent for whole
geological epochs, shift their positions entirely in the course of
ages."[10] and claims that the first to throw doubt on this was James
Dwight Dana in 1849.

Antonio Snider-Pellegrini's Illustration of the closed and opened

Atlantic Ocean (1858)
In his Manual of

Geology (1863), Dana wrote, "The continents and oceans had their
general outline or form defined in earliest time. This has been
proved with regard to North America from the position and
distribution of the first beds of the Lower
Silurian, – those of the Potsdam epoch. The facts indicate
that the continent of North America had its surface near tidelevel,
part above and part below it (p.196); and this will probably be
proved to be the condition in Primordial time of the other continents
also. And, if the outlines of the continents were marked out, it
follows that the outlines of the oceans were no less so".[12] Dana
was enormously influential in America— his Manual of Mineralogy
is still in print in revised form—
and the theory became known as the Permanence theory.
This appeared to be confirmed by the exploration of the deep sea
beds conducted by
the Challenger expedition, 1872–1876, which showed that contrary
to expectation, land debris brought down by rivers to the ocean is
deposited comparatively close to the shore on what is now known
as the continental shelf. This suggested that the oceans were a
permanent feature of the Earth's surface, rather than them having
"changed places" with the
continents.[9]

Eduard Suess had proposed a

supercontinent Gondwana in 1885[14] and the Tethys Ocean in
1893,[15] assuming a land-bridge between the present continents
submerged in the form of a geosyncline, and John Perry had written
an 1895 paper proposing that the earth's interior was fluid, and
disagreeing with Lord

Kelvin on the age of the earth.

Wegener and his predecessors