Seafloor Spreading and Magnetic Reversals
Sea floor spreading on three spreading centers connected by transform faults, with a front-cut cross section. Series of five animations demonstrating spreading, transform faulting, magnetic polarity reversals, and the Vine-Matthews hypothesis for the formation of seafloor magnetic stripes. These conceptual presentations are shown occurring at a gently rifted spreading center (i.e., a slow-medium spreading center).
Created by Tanya Atwater using Photoshop, Morph and Final Cut Pro with art help from John Iwerks and comments from Ken MacDonald and Doug Burbank.
Full Downloads Below:
Note: an earlier version had a mistake in the reversal time scale. If you downloaded those, please replace them with these.
Download individual animations:
Download: SFS animation (.mov, 13.9MB)
Download: SFS with arrows (.mov, 13.9MB)
Download: SFS with transform fault arrows (.mov, 16.9MB)
Download: Magnetic reversal explanation (.mov, 15.7MB)
Download: SFS with magnetic stripes and reversal scale (.mov, 14.2MB)
Download Page Instructions:
PC
(right click link and scroll down to "Save Download As"...)
MAC
(hold control and click link, then drag down to "Download Link to Disk")