GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The specific magnetism of basalt rock is determined by the Earth’s magnetic field when the magma is cooling. Scientists determined that the same process formed the perfectly symmetrical stripes on both side of a mid-ocean ridge . The continual process of seafloor spreading separated the stripes in an orderly pattern.

Detailed explanation-2: -These patterns of stripes provide the history of seafloor spreading. Geophysicists can read these patterns from the magnetic anomalies they measure with a magnetometer. Where the magnetic wiggles, or anomalies, are broader, the spreading rate has been faster.

Detailed explanation-3: -The symmetric banding is the result of seafloor spreading on both sides of a mid-oceanic ridge. This explanation of magnetic striping by paleomagnetism convinced scientists that new oceanic crust was being continually formed at mid-oceanic ridges. Seafloor spreading was accepted as a reality.

Detailed explanation-4: -Since the rocks that make up the seafloor solidify at times when the Earth’s magnetic field is both normal and reversed, the rocks become magnetized in stripes of various widths, depending on how long the field remainined in one position and how fast the seafloor was spreading.