Heat Flow through the Floor of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean

Abstract

THE flow of heat through the earth's crust has been measured many times at various continental locations, and is usually found to lie¹ within 50 per cent of 1.2 × 10⁻⁶ cal. cm.⁻² sec.⁻¹. Because of the absence of granitic rocks, with their relatively high radioactivity, in the crust under the oceans, it has been suggested that the heat flow through the deep-sea floor might be considerably smaller; but the only data available from oceanic areas have been two measurements of the thermal gradient in deep-sea sediments reported by Pettersson from the Swedish Albatross expedition².