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I’m going to nit-pick and point out that 3.5 billion years is extraordinarily old for oceanic crust. Wikipedia says typically 200 million years … OK, I know it’s not always a reliable source but I’ve read the same number in various books. Oceanic crust is continuously “recycled” by subduction in the course of tectonic plate activity so it’s on average way younger than continental crust. If this bit of oceanic basalt was so old, it’s not typical of most oceanic basalt. Does the study extrapolate from this to most or all the ocean crust and if, so how do they justify it?
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, no I’m not a warmist troll. Just taking a sceptical look at the information given.
You’re not nit picking at all. The only way I could figure to find oceanic basalt that old is if it became part of a very old crust and thus never went back into the mantel. Help me out if there is another way.