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What are the main features of ocean floor?

What are the main features of ocean floor?

Features of the ocean include the continental shelf, slope, and rise. The ocean floor is called the abyssal plain. Below the ocean floor, there are a few small deeper areas called ocean trenches. Features rising up from the ocean floor include seamounts, volcanic islands and the mid-oceanic ridges and rises.

How are features of the ocean floor formed?

Bathymetry, the shape of the ocean floor, is largely a result of a process called plate tectonics. Where plates diverge from each other, molten magma flows upward between the plates, forming mid-ocean ridges, underwater volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, and new ocean floor crust.

What features are found in the ocean?

Ocean ridges, deep-sea trenches, abyssal hills, fracture zones, seamounts, and guyots are some of the major features of an ocean basin.

What are the main features of the ocean floor quizlet?

Terms in this set (17)

  • abyssal plain. broad, flat part of the deep-ocean basin (covered by mud and the remains of marine organisms)
  • continental shelf.
  • continental slope.
  • mid-ocean ridge.
  • seamount.
  • continental rise.
  • ocean trench.
  • volcanic island.

What are five ocean floor features?

Features of the ocean floor include the continental shelf and slope, abyssal plain, trenches, seamounts, and the mid-ocean ridge.

What are two topographic features of the ocean floor?

A number of major features of the basins depart from this average—for example, the mountainous ocean ridges, deep-sea trenches, and jagged, linear fracture zones. Other significant features of the ocean floor include aseismic ridges, abyssal hills, and seamounts and guyots.

What are 4 types of ocean floor?

It labels the parts such as: abyssal plain, continental slope, continental shelf, trenches, mid-ocean…

Where is the ocean floor created?

mid-ocean ridges
Oceanic crust is continuously being created at mid-ocean ridges. As plates diverge at these ridges, magma rises into the upper mantle and crust. As it moves away from the ridge, the lithosphere becomes cooler and denser, and sediment gradually builds on top of it.

How deep has anyone gone in the ocean?

35,853 feet
It’s been a record-breaking expedition in more ways than one. Vescovo’s trip to the Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, back in May, was said to be the deepest manned sea dive ever recorded, at 10,927 meters (35,853 feet).

What is the most important topographic feature of the ocean floor?

The main features of the Pacific Ocean floor are the continental slopes, which drop from about 200 m to several thousand metres over a distance of a few hundred kilometres; the abyssal plains — exceedingly flat and from 4,000 m to 6,000 m deep; volcanic seamounts and islands; and trenches at subduction zones that are …

What is the most prominent feature on the ocean floor?

oceanic ridge system
Individually, ocean ridges are the largest features in ocean basins. Collectively, the oceanic ridge system is the most prominent feature on Earth’s surface after the continents and the ocean basins themselves.

What part of the ocean is 5200 m?

Tasman Basin
With maximum depth exceeding 17,000 feet (5,200 m), the seafloor’s most distinctive feature is the Tasman Basin.

What causes subduction and seafloor spreading?

Subduction occur when two plates converge towards each other and the denser plate being heavier slide below the lighter plate and Sea floor spreading occur at the Mid oceanic ridges where Diverging limbs of Convection cells tend to pull apart the plate and create a Rift Valley like the East African rift valley .

What is the evidence for seafloor spreading?

Molten materials and magnetic stripes are the evidence of seafloor spreading. When scientists studied patterns in the rocks of the ocean floor, they found more support for sea-floor spreading.

What are facts about seafloor spreading?

What Happens During the Process of Seafloor Spreading? History. Scientists originally believed that drifting was an occurrence exclusive to continents through continental drifts. Geographic Features. The process of seafloor spreading leads to the formation of numerous geographical features which can be terrestrial, sub-terrestrial, or marine features. Mid-Ocean Ridges.

What is the depth of the sea floor?

In most of the world, the ocean floor is very deep, averaging 3,790 meters (12,430 ft) in depth. Nearly half of the world’s sea floors are over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) deep. Altogether, the deep sea floor makes up about 71% of the world’s oceans, with shallow waters, such as continental shelves, making up 29%.