Where Is The Oldest Ocean Floor Located
Why are there no oceanic rocks older than 200 million years.
Where is the oldest ocean floor located. The ocean crust then spreads out enlarging the ocean. A history of ocean floor mapping and dating. What do all plate boundaries have in common.
Scientists have discovered a 3 8 billion year old rock formation in greenland that they say is the earliest example of. The oldest ocean floor is located near the continents next to a subduction zone. The oldest seafloor is comparatively very young approximately 280 million years old.
The oldest sea floor is in the mediterranean sea west of corsica and sardinia. This continual motion is evidenced by the occurrence of earthquakes and volcanoes. The subducting oceanic plate is less than 200 million years in age.
Those erratic rocks could be much older than the oldest oceanic crust. There are rocks on every continent that are 3 to 4 billion years old. Depth of the ocean floor below sea level.
New ocean crust is formed at the mid ocean ridges. The oldest patch of undisturbed oceanic crust on earth may lie deep beneath the eastern mediterranean sea and at about 340 million years old it beats the previous record by more than 100 million. Somewhere else however there are older rocks on the ocean floor those deposited by icebergs that have broken off of glaciers.
The oldest parts of the oceanic crust are found farest from the mid ocean ridges at subduction zones and continental shelves. This is because the oldest sea floor is subducted under other plates and replaces by new surfaces. The mid atlantic ocean ridge is young ocean floor.