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.
Development of the ocean floor.
The magnetism of mid ocean ridges helped scientists first identify the process of seafloor spreading in the early 20th century.
The outer rocky layer of the earth includes about a dozen large sections called tectonic plates that are arranged like a spherical jig saw puzzle floating on top of the earth s hot flowing mantle.
Bathymetry the shape of the ocean floor is largely a result of a process called plate tectonics.
Scuba divers can explore only to about 40 meters while most submarines dive only to about 500 meters.
You ll see underwater mountains called seamounts cliffs trenches and.
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.
Until the development of sonar we knew very little about the ocean floor.
The landscape of the ocean floor is much like what you see on land just way more dramatic and without all that life.
Wherever continents are bordered by deep sea trench systems as in the pacific ocean the ocean floor is plunged downward underthrusting the continents and ultimately reentering and dissolving in earth s mantle from which it had originated.
It is a clear evidence that the formation of rocks in the sea floor is due to reabsorption of materials.
Scientific research submersibles have explored the ocean s deepest trenches but most are designed to reach only the ocean floor.
See also continental drift.
The development of this instrument greatly enhanced our knowledge of the ocean floor.
Our picture of the ocean floor greatly sharpened after world war i 1914 18 when echo sounding devices primitive sonar systems began to measure ocean depth by recording the time it took for a sound signal commonly an electrically generated ping from the ship to bounce off the ocean floor and return.
It is believed that continental rocks formed 3 billion years ago however the sediments samples from the ocean floor are found to be not exceeding 200 million years old.
The ocean floor had tracks from the continents.
The features mapped on the ocean floor disproved continental drift.
Echo sounder in regions of heavy precipitation the salinity of the surface water is.
Most plate boundaries are under the ocean.