Essay On Oceanic Crust

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OLDEST OCEANIC CRUST What is an Oceanic Crust? Oceanic Crust is the part of the Earth’s crust which makes up the Ocean Floor. It is basically the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of a tectonic plate and lies on top of the solidified and uppermost layer of the mantle. The oceanic crust is more dense, thin and simpler in structure as compared to the continental crust. It is 6-9 kilometers thick and is composed primarily of mafic rocks or sima which is rich in iron and magnesium. The crust is the consequence of exploded mantle material originating from below the plate, cooled and in most cases, chemically changed by the seawater. These explosions occur typically at mid-ocean ridges. The Oldest Oceanic Crust and Why? Most oceanic crust…show more content…
Because of these reasons, the Oceanic Crust in the eastern Mediterranean is now considered to be the oldest oceanic crust of the world, even older than the 200 million years old crust found at the bottom of Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Why is the Oldest Crust? The high density of the ocean crust permits it to be 'recycled' into the earth’s mantle, which implies that a large portion of the ocean crust is under 200 million years old. Despite the fact that older remains might be preserved in the Herodotus Basin, the region is shrouded in very heavy sediment, making it hard to direct investigations on it. Magnetic data was used to analyze the structure of the Eastern Mediterranean’s Crust and it was revealed that the rocks here have magnetic strips, which is a characteristic of the ocean crust. At the point when magma cools, the magnetic minerals of the new rocks that are shaped line up with the direction of the magnetic field of the earth. Alters in the course of the magnetic field over time are recorded by the ocean floor, making a kind of “barcode” which provides a time stamp for the crust
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