Which type of plate is older: Continental or Oceanic ????

Question

I need this for my home work please help !

Answer 1

Continental is oldest but read the links to discover why!
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Link below is full of informative information
http://www.mhhe.com/earthsci/geology/mcconnell/pte/pt.htm
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See link excerpts below for answer.......have included link so you can write it your self.
Good Luck! Hope it helps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_crust
Most of the present day oceanic crust is less than 200 million years old because it is continuously being created at oceanic ridges and destroyed by being pulled back under the continental crust in subduction zones by the convection currents in the lower mantle. Plate tectonics is the study of these processes.
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For this reason the oldest rocks on Earth are within the cratons or cores of the continents, rather than in repeatedly recycled oceanic crust; the oldest continental rock is the Acasta Gneiss at 4.01 Ga, while the oldest oceanic crust is of Jurassic age.
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Answer 2

Continental is the oldest because the plate has been found in the moss for hundreds of years now and deep in the Earths center, its been there longer than the Oceanic.

Answer 3

Oceanic crust
The oceans cover over 70% of the surface of the Earth and occupy large flat-bottomed basins traversed by 2 km high oceanic ridge systems. On their active margins, they have trenches adjacent to destructive plate margins (e.g along the Pacific Ocean) while on passive margins they have broad continental slopes up to 200 km wide (e.g along the Atlantic Ocean).

Because oceanic crust spreads away from the mid-oceanic ridges, the oldest oceanic floor is found at the ocean margins. The oldest oceanic rocks are only 200 million years old but most are less than 100 million years old. This comes from older oceanic crust being subducted at destructive plate margins. In rare cases, some older ocean floor was pushed up (obducted) onto the adjacent continental crust forming alpine-type serpentinite and ophiolite belts (e.g. in the Alps across Europe).

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Continental crust
In contrast to oceanic crust, continental crust has constantly formed throughout much of the Earth's history, with the oldest rocks from Greenland dating back to 4.2 billion years, and the oldest known mineral, a zircon from the Pilbara region of Western Australia dating at 4.5 billion years. Three main types of continental crust are:

Exposed continental shields (or cratons) of mainly Precambrian (older than 570 million years) crystalline igneous and high-grade (formed at high temperatures and pressures) metamorphic rocks.
Continental platforms mainly of gently folded younger low-grade (formed at low temperatures) metamorphic rocks overlying Precambrian basement rocks.
Young, mainly Cenozoic (less than 65 million years old) mountain belts that contain deformed metamorphic rocks and later igneous (both volcanic and plutonic) rocks.