A Look at Sediments

But the question concerning the paucity of elements in sea

water still persists. Because of the paucity of so many of the

chemicals in the oceans, one might conclude that they must have

been taken out of solution in some manner, even though sea water

does not appear to be with many, if any, of the chemicals that

enter it.

Now the mechanisms of solution in, and the removal from, sea

water are rather complex. Scientists are busily engaged in

attempting to understand them. But if the chemicals are not in

the sea water, they must be on the sea floor.

Therefore, even though the chemicals in the water are not

proportional quantitatively to those in the rocks, surely the

remainder would be found on the sea floor, with the overall

chemical content reflecting an ancient ocean. Such expectation,

however, cannot be supported by the facts.

Obviously much more work must be done before a complete

analysis of the quantity and composition of the sea floor

sediments can be known. However, many cores have been taken

already, and there is much literature available concerning this

question.

Present knowledge is summed up perhaps in the comment of H.

Kuenen: "The differences in composition between oceanic and

continental sediments, both as to major constituents and trace

elements are large."(9) In other words, whether the composition

of sea water or the composition of the ocean sediments is studied,

no data has been collected yet to substantiate a long time

relationship between the oceans and the continents. Wilson sets

forth these problems:

The failure to recover any rocks older than Creataceous

from the ocean floors suggests that the ocean basins may

be younger than the continents. It has also become

evident that the petrology, sedimentations, and

structural geology of ocean chasms are quite different

from these of continents . . .the ocean basins and

oceanic islands are dramatically different from

continents in crustal thickness, age, composition, ore

deposits, structures, magnetic anomalies, and in the

patterns and characteristics of their active mountain

belts and earthquakes. Several continents have rocks at

least 3.2 x 10^9 years old, which is 20 times the age of

the oldest oceanic island, dredging, or core.(10)

Thus, because of the tremendous chemical disproportions

between the oceans and the continents, the most probable

conclusion is that the oceans are very young.