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Convection currents push the plates around. These are the circulations of the magma in the mantle, caused by the cooler magma at the surface sinking lower into the mantle, heating up, and rising to the surface again. The circular motion acts kind of like a conveyor belt to move the crust about.

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What can result if an earthquake causes a sudden vertical change in the sea floor?

A sudden vertical change in the sea floor during an earthquake can result in a tsunami. The movement of the sea floor displaces a large volume of water, which then forms powerful and destructive ocean waves that can travel long distances and cause widespread damage to coastal regions.


What is the primary force that causes the sea-floor to spread?

Convection currents


What in earths interior causes subduction and sea floor spreading?

Subduction and sea floor spreading are both a result of the movement of the tectonic plates.Plate Tectonics


The movement of the ocean floor on either side of a midocean ridge is best known as?

it is known as sea floor spreading. this is when the oceanic plates diverge or move apart which causes the magma from the mantle to rise forming new sea floor.


What in the mantle is the force that causes the plates to move slowly over the crust?

sea floor spreadong


How does sea floor spreading make the continents move?

Under the oceanic crust is the layer of the earth called the mantle. This layer is moving rock that is very, very hot! As the hot material in the mantle pushes up through the crust in the sea floor, it cools and becomes new crust as it pushes out (spreads) the sea floor. This movement in the plates causes other plates (continental and oceanic) to move as well. This is how sea floor spreading causes continents to move.


What cause a new sea floor to be created and how is it created?

Sea floor spreading causes this. As the floor spreads apart new magma is being pushed up through the ridge from the mantle through convection currents. It's like a recycling system.


Which process or processes change the size and shape of the ocean?

subduction and sea floor spreading.


Is it possible to wave surf in the middle of the ocean without a break because of the sea floor?

No, it is not possible because what causes a wave to break and become rideable is the sudden change in deapth of the ocean bottom floor , from deep to shallow, which only really happens when you get to a land mass.


What causes sea level change?

The moon and it's gravitational pull


What is the primary force that causes the continents to drift?

thermal convection is the primary force that cause the sea floor to spread


Process in which new sea floor forms as older sea floor is pulled apart?

sea-floor spreading