What Are Magnetic Stripes On The Ocean Floor

This pattern of stripes could represent what scientists see on the seafloor.

What are magnetic stripes on the ocean floor.

By using the magnetometer the magnetic polarity will be shown through a timescale that contains the normal and a reverse polarity. These surveys revealed a series of invisible magnetic stripes of normal and reversed polarity in the sea floor like that shown in the figure below. Over time the earth s magnetic field reverses its north to south polarity and the magnetic minerals point in the opposite direction creating a striped pattern. Magnetic striping magnetic minerals are found in rocks.

Note that the stripes are symmetrical about the central dusky purple stripe. 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. Touch a bar magnet s north pole to the first piece of. Obviously the ocean floor had a story to tell but what.

Tape one end of each piece of audiotape to a flat surface. The patterns reflect the creation and spreading of oceanic crust along the mid oceanic ridges. When magma flows out of a mid ocean ridge small magnetic minerals in the magma align themselves to point in the direction of the earth s current magnetic north. These patterns were unlike any seen for continental rocks.

Magnetic stripes in the 20th century the magnetic survey was conducted in the mid ocean ridge in order to investigate evidence of sea floor spreading. 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. Basalt forming at the ridge crest picks up the existing magnetic polarity. In the oceans magnetic stripes are symmetrical about a mid ocean ridge axis.

These patterns of stripes provide the history of seafloor spreading. The specific magnetism of basalt rock is determined by the earth s magnetic field when the magma is cooling. 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 pieces should be spaced 1 cm apart and lined up lengthwise in a single row.

At the mid ocean ridge spreading axis these flips in the direction of the earth s magnetic field are recorded in the magnetization of the lava. This creates a symmetrical pattern of magnetic stripes of opposite polarity on either side of mid ocean ridges. These two things were the magnetic striping on the ocean floor and the age of seafloor rocks. This similar to how iron filing line up when they are next to a magnet as seen in the pictures below.

When the rocks are in melted form these minerals will line up with earth s magnetic field. Among the new findings was the discovery of zebra stripe like magnetic patterns for the rocks of the ocean floor. Oceanographic exploration in the 1950s led to a much better understanding of the ocean floor. Plate tectonics and reversals of the earth s magnetic field are responsible for the magnetic stripes found on the ocean floor.