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The process of super-continent formation and destruction via repeated cycles of creation and destruction of oceanic crust is known as the Wilson Cycle. 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.
Earth's crustal evolution. Surface map of oceanic crust showing the generation of younger (red) crust and eventual destruction of older (blue) crust. This demonstrates the crustal spatial evolution at the Earth's surface dictated by plate tectonics. Earth's crustal evolution involves the formation, destruction and renewal of the rocky outer ...
Continental crust is a tertiary crust, formed at subduction zones through recycling of subducted secondary (oceanic) crust. [18] The average age of Earth's current continental crust has been estimated to be about 2.0 billion years. [21] Most crustal rocks formed before 2.5 billion years ago are located in cratons.
The Samail Ophiolite, also known as the Semail Ophiolite, is a large, ancient geological formation in Oman and the United Arab Emirates in the Arabian Peninsula. [ 2 ] It is one of the world's largest and best-exposed segments of oceanic crust, made of volcanic rocks and ultramafic rocks from the Earth's upper mantle that was overthrust onto ...
An ophiolite is a section of Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed, and often emplaced onto continental crustal rocks. The Greek word ὄφις, ophis (snake) is found in the name of ophiolites, because of the superficial texture of some of them. Serpentinite especially evokes a snakeskin.
Marine geology. Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal zone. Marine geology has strong ties to geophysics and to physical oceanography.
Oceanic crust and tectonic plates are formed and move apart at mid-ocean ridges. Abyssal hills are formed by stretching of the oceanic lithosphere. [25] Consumption or destruction of the oceanic lithosphere occurs at oceanic trenches (a type of convergent boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary) by a process known as subduction.
A sheeted dyke complex, or sheeted dike complex, is a series of sub-parallel intrusions of igneous rock, forming a layer within the oceanic crust. [1] At mid-ocean ridges, dykes are formed when magma beneath areas of tectonic plate divergence travels through a fracture in the earlier formed oceanic crust, feeding the lavas above and cooling ...