Question

Where are the youngest rocks in the Atlantic Ocean? What age are they?

Where are the oldest rocks on the seafloor located? What age are they? Where are the oldest rocks in the Atlantic Ocean? Based on plate tectonics, explain their location.

How are volcanoes distributed on the Earth's surface? Are they located near the edges of the continents, mid-continent, or in the ocean? Where are the largest areas with no volcanoes?

Answer 1

The youngest rocks in the Atlantic ocean can be found in the areas of Mid Atlantic Ridge. This area is marked by the divergent plate boundary. In the north, it divides the Eurasian plate and North American plate whereas in the south the boundary lies between South American Plate and African Plate. As the divergent plate boundaries are known as the constructive plate boundaries because the magma comes out through this region over the earth's surface forming new crust. That's why the youngest rocks of the Atlantic ocean are found near the area of Mid Atlantic Ridge.

The age of the rocks near The Mid Atlantic Ridge ranges from 0 To 10 Million Years Before Present ( Specifically 9.7 Million Years Before Present according to some national geological institutes).

The oldest Rocks of the Atlantic ocean can be found near the continents. The phenomenon can be explained through plate tectonics. As mentioned before that the Mid Atlantic region is on the divergent plate boundary where plates tend to move away for each other. As ages go the old rock moves away from the Mid Atlantic Ridge region towards the continents because the plates on which the rocks are being situated are moving away from the ridge region. The outward movements of the plates from the Mid Atlantic Ridge region are resulting in the increase of the area of the seafloor of Atlantic region which is known as Sea Floor Spreading. Generally, the found near continents are as old as 180 Millions of Years Before Present( Near the north of African west coast and the Southeastern coast of North America) to 120 Millions of Years Before Present ( eastern South America and Western coast of Europe and South African continent)

Most of the volcanos are being located on the ocean. This is known as Oceanic arcs where oceanic plates subduct into another plate mostly oceanic plate. The largest chain of volcanos in the Pacific Ring Of Fire is in the pacific ocean. The chain of fissure volcanos can be found through the divergent plate boundary which is submerged in the ocean. (ex - Mid Atlantic Ridge region). If we want to be specific in the language of plate tectonic it will better to that 60 percent of volcanos are being found in the regions of the plate boundaries. Whereas very few volcanos can be seen in the interior part of the plate which areas are known as the "hot spots".

Largest areas with no volcanos are the middle of the tectonic plate regions which areas are far away from the plate boundaries that's why they do not show any sign of volcanism.