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Using ocean-drilling ships, researchers have obtained radiometric dates for hundreds of locations on the ocean floor. By knowing the age of a sample and its distance from the ridge axis where it was generated, an average rate of plate motion can be calculated.
Scientists have used these data, combined with paleo- magnetism stored in hardened lavas on the ocean floor, to create maps that show the age of the ocean floor. In the map in Figure 2.33, the reddish-orange colored bands range in age from the present to about 30 million years ago. The width of the bands indicates how much crust
formed during that time period. For example, the reddish- orange band along the East Pacific Rise is more than three times wider than the same-color band along the Mid- Atlantic Ridge. Therefore, the rate of seafloor spreading has been approximately three times faster in the Pacific basin than in the Atlantic.
Maps of this type also provide clues to the current direction of plate movement. Notice the offsets in the ridges; these are transform faults that connect the spread- ing centers. Recall that transform faults are aligned parallel to the direction of spreading. When measured carefully, transform faults yield the direction of plate movement.
To establish the direction of plate motion in the past, geologists can examine the long fracture zones that extend for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers from ridge crests. Fracture zones are inactive extensions of transform faults and therefore preserve a record of past directions of plate motion. Unfortunately, most of the ocean floor is less than 180 million years old, so to look deeper into the past, researchers must rely on paleomagnetic evidence provided by continental rocks.