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LITHOEN

Geochemical reservoir

Oceanic crust (reservoir)

The oceanic crust treated as a compositional unit: young, basaltic, and continuously created and destroyed, which makes its composition quite unlike that of the continents.

Classification

scope
crust

How this record is known

1
Settled consensus
Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.

1 of 1 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.

What Lithoen records

Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.

EstablishedYoung, basaltic, thin, and continuously recycled.

Oceanic crust as a compositional reservoir is young, basaltic and thin — generally about five kilometres thick — and is continuously created at spreading centres and destroyed at subduction zones, so it never accumulates the compositional evolution that the continents record.

  • precision note: A statement about the reservoir’s character; Lithoen holds no verified compositional data for it.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Kious 1996 Primary authority

Record last updated 2026-09-06. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.