Rowley (2002) (Get the paper here.) examined the question of the temporal variation in global ridge production (i.e. area of oceanic lithosphere producton) based on an analysis of a slightly edited version of the Müller et al. (1997) AgeGrid (v. 1.6) data set. See my animation of this data here. Barry Parsons (1982) had shown that the basically triangular distribution of area as a function of age versus age distribution can be modeled simply in terms of a near constant production term with subduction removing an essentially equal area of oceanic lithosphere of all ages. Rowley (2002) updated this analysis with more detailed area as a function of age versus age data and showed that Parsons’ conclusions were well fit with newer data. This conclusion is contrary to long-held dogma regarding ridge production variability and its assumed correlates of sea level, ocean chemistry, and PCO2 among others. This conclusion has been countered by Demicco (2004), Conrad and Lithgow-Bertelloni (2006) and more recently by Müller et al. (2008), but their analyses are not definitive can be countered as well (see Rowley (2008a, 2008b- These papers are currently in review and revision and will be detailed after they have been published). Discussion of extrapolated oceanic lithosphere age distributions can be found here.

Read unpublished discussion of Demicco (2004) here => DemiccoComment.pdf.