Explain Why The Ocean Floor Is Not A Flat Surface

It has a wide variety of geological features e g fig.

Explain why the ocean floor is not a flat surface.

Recall from the chapter on plate tectonics that the ocean floor is not flat. Mid ocean ridges deep sea trenches and other features all rise sharply above or plunge deeply below the abyssal plains. Firstly the earth is round so the ocean cannot be flat. A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor but that does not reach to the water s surface and thus is not an island islet or cliff rock seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from the seafloor to 1 000 4 000 m 3 300 13 100 ft in height.

Like even the flattest grasslands the world s oceans have varied elevations. However the ocean floor is not flat. Navigators of ships and submarines are interested in avoiding dangers or impediments to their progress. Benthos is the community of organisms which live on in or near the seabed the area known as the benthic zone.

Early civilizations believed the ocean floor to be a smooth bowl devoid of features or life. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. We re aren t just talking about the ocean floor but the actual surface of the ocean. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level.

This community lives in or near marine sedimentary environments from tidal pools along the foreshore out to the continental shelf and then down to the abyssal depths the benthic zone is the ecological region on in and immediately above the seabed including the sediment surface. If the mid ocean ridge is created where the tectonic plates separate why is a mountain range formed there. Continental shelf the shallow gradually sloping seabed around the edge of a. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet.

We have big news. In fact earth s tallest mountain is mauna kea volcano which rises 10 203 m 33 476 ft meters from the pacific ocean floor to become one of. Most people are surprised to learn that just as the surface of the earth is not flat the surface of the ocean is not flat and that the surface of the sea changes at different rates around the globe. The deep ocean floor.

For instance the absolute water level height is higher along the west coast of the united states than the east coast. Vocabulary abyssal plain the flat bottom of the ocean floor. Why do you think mapping the seafloor is important to the navy. The globe isn t flat and neither are the world s oceans.

Thirdly there are waves and currents in. While most life on this planet requires sunlight to live there is an. Tides and ocean currents. Secondly the sun and the moon s gravity are pulling on the ocean surface causing it to bulge.