The depth of the seafloor on the flanks of a mid-ocean ridge is determined mainly by the age of the oceanic lithosphere; older seafloor is deeper. During seafloor spreading, lithosphere and mantle cooling, contraction, and isostatic adjustment with age cause seafloor deepening. This relationship has come to be better understood since around 1969 with significant updates in 1974 and 1977. Two main theories have been put forward to explain this observation: one where the mantle including the lithosphere is cooling; the cooling mantle model, and a second where a lithosphere plate cools above a mantle at a constant temperature; the cooling plate model. The cooling mantle model explains the age-depth observations for seafloor younger than 80 million years. The cooling plate model explains the age-depth observations best for seafloor older that 20 million years. In addition, the cooling plate model explains the almost constant depth and heat flow observed in very old seafloor and lithosphere. In practice it is convenient to use the solution for the cooling mantle model for an age-depth relationship younger than 20 million years. Older than this the cooling plate model fits data as well. Beyond 80 million years the plate model fits better than the mantle model.
and 26 Related for: Seafloor depth versus age information
The depth of the seafloor on the flanks of a mid-ocean ridge is determined mainly by the age of the oceanic lithosphere; older seafloor is deeper. During...
Seafloor spreading, or seafloor spread, is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and...
silicates and insoluble iron and manganese oxides that form on the ocean seafloor and terrestrial soils. The formation mechanism involves a series of redox...
the Mariana Trench. The laying of transatlantic telegraph cables on the seafloor between the continents during the late 19th and early 20th centuries provided...
associated with extensional tectonics and high heat flow, often being home to seafloor spreading centers. These spreading centers are like mid-ocean ridges, though...
the Atlantic reclaimed the basin. Sediment samples from below the deep seafloor of the Mediterranean Sea, which include evaporite minerals, soils, and...
Hunting occurs primarily at night, with the skates searching along the seafloor for food. Clearnose skates have 46 to 54 teeth in their upper jaw and approximately...
to the crust at the ridge and expanded the seafloor outward. This theory was to become known as seafloor spreading. Since the Earth's circumference has...
refinement of estimates of the planet's age. Plate tectonics theory arose from two separate geological observations: seafloor spreading and continental drift...
argued that these share an origin with similar stripes found on Earth's seafloor, which have been attributed to gradual production of new crust at spreading...
suggested that Pachycetus preferred shallow waters and fed close to the seafloor, a suggestion largely congruent with the German and American sediments...
could not be used, and seismic data remained unavailable from much of the seafloor. Nonetheless, vertical plumes, 400 C hotter than the surrounding rock,...
kelps. For example, a Macrocystis canopy may extend many meters above the seafloor towards the ocean surface, while an understory of the kelps Eisenia and...
atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as soils and seafloor sediments. The fast cycle includes annual cycles involving photosynthesis...
plateaus, being neither flat-topped nor elevated more than 200 m above the seafloor. Examples include the Caribbean, Nauru, East Mariana, and Pigafetta provinces...
shallow marine waters Bobbit worms are ambush predators that live on the seafloor Echinoderms (Greek for spiny skin) is a phylum which contains only marine...
experience fluctuations in water depth and salinity. When diatoms die their shells (frustules) can settle on the seafloor and become microfossils. Over time...
in the last 3,500 years, suggesting a return time of about 500 years. Seafloor core evidence indicates that there have been forty-one subduction zone...
oceanic lithosphere. The size of the seamounts increases with the age of the seafloor, indicating that the availability of melt increases with the thickness...
of Letters and Science. Wright's research interests include: mapping of seafloor spreading zones and coral reefs, spatial analysis and geographic information...
Flatfish are benthic fish with a negative buoyancy so they can rest on the seafloor. Although flatfish are bottom dwellers, they are not usually deep sea fish...
Archived from the original on 24 June 2010. Retrieved 20 June 2010. "Seafloor Exit" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 July 2010. Retrieved...
Prangishvili D (October 2016). "Virus-mediated archaeal hecatomb in the deep seafloor". Science Advances. 2 (10): e1600492. Bibcode:2016SciA....2E0492D. doi:10...
construction debris. Shipwrecks may become artificial reefs when preserved on the seafloor. A conventional artificial reef uses materials such as concrete, which...
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