The Youngest Part Of The Ocean Floor Is Found

The youngest part of the ocean floor is found.

The youngest part of the ocean floor is found.

The youngest crust of the ocean floor can be found near the seafloor spreading centers or mid ocean ridges as the plates split apart magma rises from below the earth s surface to fill in the empty void. Cratons are therefore always found within continents. Oceanic crust the outermost layer of earth s lithosphere that is found under the oceans and formed at spreading centres on oceanic ridges which occur at divergent plate boundaries. The spreading however is generally not uniform causing linear features perpendicular to the divergent boundaries.

A craton is a stable part of the continental lithosphere which has survived several cycles responsible for the merge and the dislocation of supercontinents. Because of this the youngest sea floor can be found along divergent boundaries such as the mid atlantic ocean ridge. Some cratons in canada and greenland shelter the oldest continental rocks in the world about 4 billion years old. Near ocean ridges is defined as the study of the history of earth s magnetic field.

Near ocean ridges d. Along deep sea trenches b. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. The oldest continental rocks are found in cratons.

Oceanic crust is about 6 km 4 miles thick. The youngest part of the ocean floor is found at conservative plate boundaries where oceanic crust is pulled apart and magma rises from the mantle to form new oceanic crust. It is composed of several layers not including the overlying sediment. Where earth s magnetic field changes polarity.

Plates slide past one another at. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. The youngest part of the ocean floor is found. Pulls tectonic plates toward one another.

This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. This dataset shows the age of the ocean floor along with the labeled tectonic plates and boundaries.