oceanize

English

Etymology

ocean +‎ -ize

Verb

oceanize (third-person singular simple present oceanizes, present participle oceanizing, simple past and past participle oceanized)

1. (transitive, geology) To cover in ocean.
   • 1977, Mikhail Vladimirovich Muratov, The Origin of Continents and Ocean Basins, Mir Publishers, page 157:

     Subsequently V.V. Tikhomirov considered the basification of continental crust, with its conversion into oceanic crust as a result of basic metasomatism, that is, the withdrawal of fluids from the mantle to replace and thus oceanize the granitic-metamorphic layer.

   • 2013, Alan Nairn, The Arctic Ocean, Springer, →ISBN, page 160:

     Shatskiy (1935) first suggested that large blocks of the continent foundered and have been oceanized where ocean now exists.

   • 2014, Kenneth Jinghwa Hsü, Challenger at Sea: A Ship That Revolutionized Earth Science, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 146:

     Beloussov borrowed the idea, first postulated by the Dutch geologist van Bemmelen, that continental crust could somehow be oceanized, and in the early 1960s he started to make marginal basins by playing with the word oceanization.

Derived terms

• oceanization