Age Of Oldest Ocean Floor

Why is the seafloor so young.

Age of oldest ocean floor.

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. 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 seafloor has been radiometrically dated to only about 200 million years duxbury et al. 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.

Visualize how the atlantic ocean floor started separating the continents and grew to its present size. Scientists use the magnetic polarity of the sea floor to determine the age. 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. This sounds old but is actually very young compared to the oldest continental rocks which are 4 billion years old.

Submarine canyons on continental shelves and slopes are cut by. The data is from four companion digital models of the age age uncertainty spreading rates and spreading asymmetries of the world s ocean basins. The final map will allow you to explore all of the maps. Very little of the sea floor is older than 150 million years.

For that geologists date and study continental crust. 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. Oceanic crust tends to get colder and denser with age as it spreads off the mid ocean ridges. These parts of the seafloor are about 200 million years old.

It is due to the process of subduction. This activity consists of naming the continents identifying mid ocean ridges and determining the age of the ocean floor. 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. Therefore the age of the ocean floor is not an accurate tool to measure the age of the earth.

Therefore seafloor dating isn t that useful for studying plate motions beyond the cretaceous. Submarine volcanoes near a subduction zone. It gets so dense that it sinks in the. Remote sensing devices used to study the ocean floor are.

Island arcs grow from. The age of the oldest ocean floor is about million years.