What determines the volume of the oceans?

Details What determines the volume of the oceans? What determines the volume of the oceans?

Apr 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992e%26psl.109..507k&link_type=abstract

Earth and Planetary Science Letters (ISSN 0012-821X), vol. 109, no. 3-4, April 1992, p. 507-515. Research supported by NASA and

Other

10

Hydrothermal Systems, Ocean Bottom, Oceanography, Oceans, Volume, Convective Heat Transfer, Earth Crust, Earth Mantle, Sea Water

Scientific paper

The volume of earth's oceans may be determined by a dynamic mechanism involving exchange of water between the crust and the mantle. Fast-spreading mid-ocean ridges are currently submerged to a depth at which the pressure is close to the critical pressure for seawater. This ensures optimal convective heat transport and, hence, maximal penetration of hydrothermal circulation along the ridge axes. The oceanic crust is hydrated to a depth of a kilometer or more and can therefore carry a substantial flux of water to the upper mantle when it is subducted. The current ingassing rate of water by this process is probably at least sufficient to balance the outgassing rate. If the oceans were shallower, as they may have been in the distant past, convective heat transport would be reduced and the depth of hydrothermal penetration and crustal hydration would decrease. Outgassing would exceed ingassing and ocean volume would increase. The system is self-stabilizing as long as the depth of the oceans does not exceed its present value. This mechanism could explain why continental freeboard has remained approximately constant since the Archean despite probable increases in continental area.

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