Are Tectonic Plates recycling the Earth's crust?

Question

We have graphed that the plates are moving, erupting out of the crust in one area, and sublimating in another. If you look at a plate, determine its rate of sublimation, if the Earth has been in existance for long enough, the entire plate's surface would have been sucked under the crust by now, with new surface every so-many million years. Has anyone done those calculations?

Update:

All - sorry about the 'sublimation' verb - been little sleep for last three days. thoughts of the ground evaporating on a continuous basis is amusing... hey, at least they are not Teutonic Plates

Punk Rock and Minerals · Accepted Answer

All the oceanic plates are constantly being recycled. No oceanic crust is more than 250 million years old
the continental plates on the other hand are all ancient, all are billions of years old. Continental crust never subducts

Anonymous · Answer

The Earth's crust is not "sublimating".  There are subduction zones on the ocean floor.  Not all of the Earth's crust is being recycled.  Their are granitic cratons that are lighter than oceanic crusts.  The cratons contain the oldest rocks on the planet.

NoPlate · Answer

The short answer is yes, kind of.  All ocean floor is being recycled.  Through slow processes of uplift and submergence some continental material will be recycled, too.  But the granite backbones of the continents float on top of the basaltic seafloor material and will get scraped off instead of subducted.  This has happened again and again.  The continents themselves will not be subducted or recycled - they'll just get crunched up into new shapes as the eons pass.

James · Answer

The Nazca ridge is being subducted into the Peru-Chile trench. If an ocean ridge is dense enough to sink into the mantle, then the entire ocean basin is also and this would have occurred. Plate tectonics is not real. it is a failed theory.

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Are Tectonic Plates recycling the Earth's crust?

4 Answers