An ophiolite is a section of Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed, a… 展开

The stratigraphic-like sequence observed in ophiolites corresponds to the lithosphere-forming processes at mid-oceanic ridges. From top to bottom, the layers in the sequence are:
• … 展开

Ophiolites have been identified in most of the world's orogenic belts. However, two components of ophiolite formation are under debate: the origin of the sequence and the mechanism for ophiolite emplacement. E… 展开

Scientists have drilled only about 1.5 km into the 6- to 7-kilometer-thick oceanic crust, so scientific understanding of oceanic crust comes largely from comparing ophiolite structure to seismic soundings of in situ oceanic cr… 展开

Ophiolites are common in orogenic belts of Mesozoic age, like those formed by the closure of the Tethys Ocean. Ophiolites in Archean and Paleoproterozoic domains are rare.
Most ophiolites c… 展开

The term ophiolite originated from publications of Alexandre Brongniart in 1813 and 1821. In the first, he used ophiolite for serpentinite rocks found in large-scale breccias called mélanges. In the second publication, he e… 展开