Labs / Geography
Seafloor Spreading Stripes
Fresh crust erupts at the mid-ocean ridge and creeps outward on both sides. Each time Earth's magnetic field flips, the cooling rock locks in the new direction — painting the same striped barcode on the left and right of the ridge. Hover anywhere on the seafloor to read how old that crust is.
oldest 5.6 Myrcursor —dist —field —
What to try
- Speed up the spreading rate. Why do the stripes get wider even though the field flips just as often?
- Two stripes sit the same distance from the ridge on opposite sides. Are they the same age? Why does that happen?
- Switch to “Real Earth”. Why are those stripes uneven instead of neatly spaced?
- Hover a stripe far from the ridge, then one nearby. How does distance from the ridge translate into age?
- Pause and shorten the reversal interval. How could geologists use stripe widths to measure how fast a plate once moved?