Earthguide Online Classroom

  Magnetization of the Sea Floor and Seafloor Spreading

See related animation:
Seafloor Spreading Other animations related to plate tectonics


Animation Source:
Earthguide at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Questions for thought

  1. The paleomagnetic stripes on the seafloor for a pattern that looks like a bar code. What kind of pattern makes it easiest to identify the age of a particular patch of seafloor - where the pattern include many stripes or few stripes over the same width?
  2. What two factors are involved in setting the width of a paleomagnetic stripe?
  3. What's happening to the Earth's magnetic field to make paleomagnetic stripes on the seafloor?
  4. If you could illuminate the seafloor, what would paleomagnetic stripes look like?
© 2008 Earthguide at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
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