What Happens at Divergent Boundaries

Divergent boundaries, also called spreading centers, are locations where two oceanic plates are moving apart. Due to this divergence they routinely have small earthquakes from movement and also the site of submarine volcanism or lava flows.

Divergent boundaries can also occur between continental plates which can result in splitting a continent apart. Such an event is currently occuring in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa that is widening the Red Sea.

Earth’s magnetic field can be recorded in rocks as certain iron rich minerals (magnetite) become orientated to Earth’s magnetic field as they crystalize in volcanic rocks.

• Movement of molten iron within Earth’s liquid outer core along with electrical currents generates Earth’s magnetic field.

• Our current magnetic polarity is called normal polarity but many times in the past it became reversed polarity in which the North magnetic pole would be located over the South pole.

• Geoscientists have constructed a timescale of Earth’s magnetic reversals for the past 180 million years, called the geomagnetic reversal timescale.

• They can then use this timescale to determine the age of volcanic rocks.

• Geoscientist discovered that the pattern of magnetic reversals captured in rock were matching on either side of the mid-ocean ridge thus proving seafloor spreading.