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What do you think about fossils in the middle of the ocean


Daniel Fischer

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 A few days ago I thought about fossils in the middle of the ocean. What kind of fossils are there in the ocean? Are there fossils there at all? What are we missing by not looking for fossils in the deep oceans? And is it worth it to do that?

I want to share some of my thoughts about this topic and mainly hear your thoughts about it.

So first of all I want to talk about the oceans that are deep ocean for billions of years, I think that there will be fossils there but not much because even today there is not a lot of life in the deep oceans and exploring them is extremely hard so I think finding fossils there will be nearly impossible.

What I think will be more interesting is for example the middle of the Atlantic ocean, I saw assumptions that claimed that in the end of the cretaceous what is today Africa started moving away from what is today south America. If this is true what is today the middle of the ocean was once a coast that could be full of life and today could be full of fossils that show entire new habitats that we never heard about.

So what do you think? How can we find fossils in the deep oceans, and will it be worth the effort?

I would love to hear anything you think about generally this topic.

 

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No, what is today the middle of the ocean is geologically young.  You have to look at how plate tectonics function.  Plates move apart because new material if coming in and pushing outward.   The outer edges of the plates are considered, then you have to think about how many of those edge have been subducted under other plates.  

 

In the end, it would be a purely academic exercise anyway.  Even if there were fossil beds under the middle of the oceans, they cant be explored.  It would be easier to strip-mine the known fossil bed areas to search for new fossils than to explore under the ocean.

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"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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You pose an interesting question. I would suggest the following paper as a place to start your explorations on this question:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025322718301725

 

The paper is titled: "Fossils from seabed bedrocks: Implications for the nature of the acoustic basement of the Mendeleev Rise (Arctic Ocean)"

 

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Of course if you wanted to look for fossils under the ocean, provided you could reach them, you would first have to ascertain where sedimentary rocks are available, as noted in the paper which sharkdoctor has linked for you. For example, a lot of Pleistocene fossils have been dredged out of the North Sea by fishing vessels, since a whole area, which is called the Dogger Bank, was a land bridge between Great Britain and the European continent in those days. All continental shelves could have potential as long as sedimentary rocks are available, but I know nothing about that subject myself.

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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It is true that the ocean floor becomes younger the closer you get to the ranges of active volcanism that account for sea-floor spreading.  For that reason, in the Atlantic there are no sediments deeper than the continental shelf that are older than the Cretaceous for example.  However there are younger sediments in places, some of them fossil rich.  For example, here is an article about a deposit of marine clay with a high concentration of fossil fish bits (teeth, bones, scales) that could provide enough rare earths (minerals important in the manufacture of computers, cell phones, etc) to supply the worlds current needs for 400-700 years.

 

Don

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You bring up a lot of good questions and you're thinking critically about the subject which is awesome. Extrapolating on a couple of ideas- 1. Is there actually not much life in the deep ocean? I suppose that depends on what your definition of life is, but we have to be open to the idea that there is plenty of life there, just not the type of life you are accustomed to seeing. For example, there are the hydrothermal vent communities, which are supported by methanogen bacteria. It is likely that there is a lot of microbial life, we just can't see it. In fact, you and I are covered with countless microorganisms, both inside and outside our bodies. We would not be able to function without them and are as essential to us as our own cells.  

 

2. Fossils may not be found in the environment they lived in. Just because you found a fossil dinosaur in the desert doesn't mean the dinosaur lived in a desert. This is due to plate tectonics and climate has varied drastically throughout earth's history. This is also why there are no billion year old oceans. Some deeper water rocks have now ended up on top of mountains, such as the famous Burgess Shale, which was formed in deeper waters below a continental shelf. Even then, there is some controversy as to whether the Burgess Shale fauna lived in that environment, or lived on the shelf and were then transported to deeper waters where they were buried. 

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5 hours ago, Daniel Fischer said:

talk about the oceans that are deep ocean for billions of years

 

29 minutes ago, Crusty_Crab said:

there are no billion year old oceans.

Yes, indeed. Oldest real ocean floor (with true oceanic crust) still located in the deep ocean is a max. of 200 million years old.

Franz Bernhard

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Here  is an old thread, that has photos of Megs and Chubs retrieved from the bottom of the Atlantic 45 miles off the Southeast coast of the US.  We certainly have some TFF members who have participated in those dives.

I was intrigued by the concept of fossilization at the bottom of the ocean

Edited by Shellseeker

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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First of all thank you everyone for your replies.

As far as I know fossils can not form in any kind of igneous rocks including rocks that are formed by volcanic eruptions above and under the ocean, if this is true the new material that is covering the ocean floor and came from a volcanic eruption will not include fossils. and that leads me to say that there are no fossils on the ocean floor but we know this is not the case so please tell me what am I missing here.

The simple explanation that I see to this is that the new material that covers the ocean floor is not igneous rock but I found sources that claimed it is. although these sources may be wrong. And if the new material that covers the ocean floor is sedimentary rock then where is it coming from?

If you are not confused at this point please explain it to me. :trilowalk:

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I think your confusion is coming from thinking in absolutes.  The ocean floor is not entirely igneous nor sedimentary.  Some parts are mostly recent igneous rock with a thin layer of sediment.  The farther away it gets from the plate separations, the more sediment it gets and begins to fossilize.  Many of the inland fossil sites were once under the ocean.  Its all part of the process of a living planet. 

"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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