A | B |
mid-ocean ridge | the longest chain of mountains in the world |
sonar | a device that bounces sound waves off underwater objects and then records the echoes of these sound waves |
Iceland | is an example of mid-ocean ridge |
What happens at the mid-ocean ridge? | Molten material rises from the mantle and erupts. The molten material then spreads out, pushing older rock to both sides of the ridge. |
sea-floor spreading | The process that continually adds new material to the ocean floor |
3 examples of sea-floor spreading | molten material, magnetic stripes, drilling samples |
molten material | looks like toothpaste squeezed from a tube and quickly dried |
magnetic stripes | rock that hardens with iron, that is like tiny compass needles |
drilling samples | pieces of the sea floor from 6 kilometers deep that was brought up |
deep-ocean trenches | the ocean floor plunges into deep underwater canyons |
subduction | the process of ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle |
deep-ocean trenches and subduction | 2 processes that allows part of the ocean floor to sink back into the mantle, over tens of millions of years |
Pacific Ocean | shrinking ocean |
Atlantic Ocean | expanding ocean |