Age Of Oldest Ocean Floor

Why is the seafloor so young.

Age of oldest ocean floor.

These parts of the seafloor are about 200 million years old. 2005 114 whereas continental rocks have been dated to four billion years and the earth is thought to be about 4 6 billion years old dalrymple 2004. The oldest oceanic crust is about 260 million years old. Very little of the sea floor is older than 150 million years.

For that geologists date and study continental crust. The mediterranean sea is home to what could be the world s oldest oceanic crust an undisturbed section of earth s outermost shell that scientists say is about 340 million years old. Because of this correlation between age and subduction potential very little ocean floor is older than 125 million years and almost none of it is older than 200 million years. 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.

This activity consists of naming the continents identifying mid ocean ridges and determining the age of the ocean floor. Scientists use the magnetic polarity of the sea floor to determine the age. Based on ages of the oldest rocks in the north and south atlantic describe how and when the atlantic ocean formed and how its shape has changed through time. Oceanic crust tends to get colder and denser with age as it spreads off the mid ocean ridges.

Therefore seafloor dating isn t that useful for studying plate motions beyond the cretaceous. The final map will allow you to explore all of the maps. Visualize how the atlantic ocean floor started separating the continents and grew to its present size. The next oldest seafloor is found at the margins of the north atlantic ocean and the northwestern pacific ocean as far as possible from the mid ocean ridges where they were created.

Submarine volcanoes near a subduction zone. The oldest seafloor has been radiometrically dated to only about 200 million years duxbury et al. Therefore the age of the ocean floor is not an accurate tool to measure the age of the earth. Remote sensing devices used to study the ocean floor are.

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. Once you have labeled each map correctly you should be able to answer the series of questions that follow the exercise. Island arcs grow from. Submarine canyons on continental shelves and slopes are cut by.

It is due to the process of subduction. This sounds old but is actually very young compared to the oldest continental rocks which are 4 billion years old.