Age Of Oldest Rocks On Ocean Floor

In 1990 after 20 years of searching geologists found the oldest oceanic rocks by drilling into the seafloor of the western pacific.

Age of oldest rocks on ocean floor.

Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of a tectonic plate it is composed of the upper oceanic crust with pillow lavas and a dike complex and the lower oceanic crust composed of troctolite gabbro and ultramafic cumulates. Consider how the age of rocks is related to the shape of the seafloor you saw in step 3. Every so often it has occurred over 170 times over the past 100 million years the poles will suddenly switch. As the magma and lava cool at seafloor spreading centers whatever magnetic field is present get ingrained into the rock.

Why are there no oceanic rocks older than 200 million years. The ocean plates spread and grow in opposite directions so rocks that are equidistance from the center have the same magnetic polarity and age. This image shows the age of rocks on the atlantic ocean seafloor. The oldest ocean floor is located near the continents next to a subduction zone.

Examine the color code to understand how the age of rocks changes from the center to the edges of the ocean floor. The crust overlies the solidified and uppermost layer of the mantle the crust and the solid mantle layer together constitute oceanic lithosphere. There are rocks on every continent that are 3 to 4 billion years old. This dataset shows the age of the ocean floor along with the labeled tectonic plates and boundaries.