Oldest Part Of The Ocean Floor

From studying the oxygen isotopes of the shells of microfossils in these cores scientists were able to begin studying the earth s past climates in a study known as paleoclimatology.

Oldest part of the ocean floor. It then moves outwards towards the plate margins where it is subducted. The oldest continental rocks are found in cratons. They could be the oldest known organisms on planet earth. This is because the oldest sea floor is subducted under other plates and replaces by new surfaces.

This continual motion is evidenced by the occurrence of earthquakes and volcanoes. The oldest rocks are located on continents usually away from the ocean. The oldest of all oceanic rocks are on the asian side of the pacific plate. The mid ocean ridges are in fact home of some of the youngest rocks.

The mariana trench the world s deepest submarine de pression is more than 11 000m below sea level in some parts about 7 000m below the mean depth of the ocean floor. So the oldest sea floor is found at the plate margins. Some cratons in canada and greenland shelter the oldest continental rocks in the world about 4 billion years old. The oldest rocks on the ocean floor would be those at the colliding edge of the plate boundary answer 2.

The oldest oceanic crust in the atlantic ocean is part of the mid atlantic ridge mar the longest mountain range in the world. 100 million year old life forms found on the ocean floor. Where is the. A craton is a stable part of the continental lithosphere which has survived several cycles responsible for the merge and the dislocation of supercontinents.

The oldest large scale oceanic crust is in the west pacific and north west atlantic both are about up to 180 200 million years old. However parts of the eastern mediterranean sea are remnants of the much older tethys ocean at about 270 and up to 340 million years old. The reason for this is what is called sea floor. The trenches around the edges of the eastern pacific ocean are shallower than are those of the western pacific.

Energy poor environments is the most interesting part of the. The mid atlantic ridge is a mid ocean ridge which is a system of underwater mountains formed by tectonic plate movements and is a catalyst for oceanic crust formation. Deep ocean drilling and radiometric dating in the late 1960s gave an accurate stratigraphy and precise date of the ocean floor. The youngest part of the sea floor is where it is being created at the mid ocean ridge.