Oceanic lithosphere is the rigid outer shell of Earth underlying ocean basins, comprising oceanic crust and the uppermost mantle, mechanically coupled and behaving as a coherent tectonic plate segment. It forms at mid-ocean ridges through decompression melting of the mantle, producing basaltic crust overlying a lithospheric mantle that cools, thickens, and increases in density with age and distance from the ridge. Its thermal and mechanical structure controls plate flexure, isostasy, and patterns of seismicity, and it ultimately returns to the mantle at subduction zones, playing a central role in plate tectonics, mantle convection, and global geochemical cycling.
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