Ocean Basins the Oldest Oceanic Essay

At the American coastline, the estimated age is between 1 and 60 million years. Finally, at the borderline with the Philippine and the Australian Plates, the approximated age is somewhere between 160, up to 180, or even 200 million years.

6) the Atlantic Ocean plate is similar to that of the Pacific Ocean in the meaning that its age differs. Just like with the Pacific crust, the Atlantic crust is younger at one border, to grow older towards the middle of the ocean, and even older as it reaches the opposite border.

7) the spatial pattern of the crustal age is consistent with the theory of the plate tectonics, which argues that -- at one point in time (or even at several times) -- the entire lands on the planet were joined together (Rockhounding Arkansas, 1998). The pattern of the crustal age is consistent with this theory as it reveals a similar construction and composition of the borders along the continents, indicating that those regions -- which are now similar -- could once have been part of the same whole.8-9) the structure and formation of the oceanic floor would depend on two features -- the age of the plates, and the vicinity to the shore. In the immediate vicinity of the shore, the topographic features would be mild and stable. As the age of the plates increases however, the topographic features would be more abrupt, and this would be explained by the fact that erosions and earthquakes had shaped and reshaped them (Orfano, 2010).

References:

Orfano, F., 2010, Topography of the ocean floor, Bright Hub, http://www.brighthub.com/engineering/civil/articles/63495.aspx last accessed on January 6, 2011

Patchett, P.J., Samson, S.D., 2003, Ages and growth of the continental crust from radiogenic isotopes, the Crust, Vol. 3

1998, Our changing Earth, Rockhounding Arkansas, http://www.rockhoundingar.com/geology/condrift.html last accessed on January 6, 2011

Crustal age, National Geographic Data Center, http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/WorldCrustalAge.gif last accessed on….....