What are some features of the ocean floor?

Features of the ocean floor include the continental shelf and slope, abyssal plain, trenches, seamounts, and the mid-ocean ridge. The ocean floor is rich in resources. Living things on the ocean floor are used for food or medicines. Nonliving resources include oil, gas, and minerals.

What are the 8 features of the ocean floor?

There are nine main features of the ocean floor which include (1) continental shelf, (2) continental slope, (3) continental rise, (4) abyssal plains, (5) abyssal hill, (6) mid-ocean ridges, (7) seamounts, (8) deep ocean trenches, and (9) volcanic islands.

What type of feature makes up most of the ocean floor?

The feature that forms most of the ocean floor is the abyssal plain.

What ocean floor features are shown at a?

Quote from video:The ocean floor is made up of various landscapes including mountains valleys and plains these underwater surfaces of the ocean. Floor are located from the shallow part of the ocean to its deepest.

What are the bathymetric features of the ocean floor?

Bathymetric features such as the continental shelf and seamounts interact with ocean currents and winds to produce regions of upwelling, where nutrient-rich waters are brought to the surface. This nutrient-rich water supports high levels of primary production by phytoplankton, which in turn attracts larger organisms.

Which ocean floor features are underwater mountains?

A seamount is an underwater mountain. A rise is an underwater mountain range located where tectonic plates are spreading apart. A rise is also known as a mid-ocean ridge.

What is the floor of ocean?

The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as ‘seabeds’.

What’s at the bottom of the ocean floor?

The main features are mid-oceanic ridges, hydrothermal vents, mud volcanoes, seamounts, canyons and cold seeps.

What is the order of ocean floor features between the shore of a continent and the deep ocean floor?

The shelf usually ends at a point of increasing slope (called the shelf break). The sea floor below the break is the continental slope. Below the slope is the continental rise, which finally merges into the deep ocean floor, the abyssal plain. The continental shelf and the slope are part of the continental margin.

How are features found on the ocean floor similar to features found on land?

The ocean floor covers more than 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Like dry land, the ocean floor has various features including flat plains, sharp mountains, and rugged canyons (Fig. 7.1). However, the lowest point in the world ocean is much deeper than the highest point on land.

What are the common to all features of ocean basin structure?

Yet, they all contain certain common features such as oceanic ridges, trenches, and fracture zones and cracks, abyssal plains and hills, seamounts and guyots.

What are the key surface features produced by sea floor spreading?

Midocean ridges, transform faults and fracture zones are the key surface features produced by seafloor spreading.

What discovery about the ocean floor is associated?

What they discovered was that the magnetism of the ocean floor around mid-ocean ridges was divided into matching “stripes” on either side of the ridge. The specific magnetism of basalt rock is determined by the Earth’s magnetic field when the magma is cooling.

How does a sea floor spread?

Sea-floor spreading is what happens at the mid-oceanic ridge where a divergent boundary is causing two plates to move away from one another resulting in spreading of the sea floor. As the plates move apart, new material wells up and cools onto the edge of the plates.

How is new ocean floor and oceanic crust formed?

This process occurs when oceanic crust is pushed back into the mantle at subduction zones. As old oceanic crust is subducted and melted into magma, new oceanic crust in the form of igneous rock is formed at mid-ocean ridges and volcanic hotspots.

What does the oceanic crust look like?

Oceanic crust is about 6 km (4 miles) thick. It is composed of several layers, not including the overlying sediment. The topmost layer, about 500 metres (1,650 feet) thick, includes lavas made of basalt (that is, rock material consisting largely of plagioclase [feldspar] and pyroxene).

Where does the ocean floor form?

As plates converge, one plate may move under the other causing earthquakes, forming volcanoes, or creating deep ocean trenches. 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 do sea floor rock patterns indicate about how rock forms?

new rock forms at the rift in a mid-ocean ridge. What do sea floor rock patterns indicate about how rock forms? New rock forms at the center of a ridge and then moves away from the center in opposite directions. What supports Hess’s theory of sea floor spreading?

What is ocean floor topography?

The term “topography” implies the study of numerous landforms that exist on or below the earth. Ocean floor topography refers to the different forms in which the ocean floor bottom can exist. You may perceive the ocean floor to be flat and sandy like the beach, but the truth is there are many different surfaces.

How does the ocean floor keep track of magnetic fields?

Answer and Explanation: The ocean floor keeps track of magnetic fields by forming magnetic stripes. These stripes are long bands of rock sharing a particular magnetic…

How do scientists date sea floor rocks?

Scientists date sea-floor rocks by looking at patterns in the rocks, including magnetic patterns, and by looking at the geomagnetic reversal time scale. New material is constantly being pushed up from deep below the surface to form the ridge. … As the ridge rises, rocks are pushed out to either side.

How do ocean floor rocks differ in age and magnetism?

Seafloor Ages



Different seafloor magnetic stripes equal different ages. By using geologic dating techniques, scientists could figure out what these ages are. They found that the youngest rocks on the seafloor were at the mid-ocean ridges. The rocks get older with distance from the ridge crest.

Which scientist discovered the ocean floor?

Harry Hess was a geologist and Navy submarine commander during World War II. Part of his mission had been to study the deepest parts of the ocean floor. In 1946 he had discovered that hundreds of flat-topped mountains, perhaps sunken islands, shape the Pacific floor.

What was discovered about the age of the ocean floor?

Scientists can determine the age of the seafloor by examining the changing magnetic field of our planet. Every once in a while, the currents in the liquid core, which create the Earth’s magnetic field, reverse themselves: it is called a geomagnetic reversal. This has happened many times throughout Earth’s history.

How old is the youngest sea floor?

Scientists use the magnetic polarity of the sea floor to determine the age. Very little of the sea floor is older than 150 million years. This is because the oldest sea floor is subducted under other plates and replaces by new surfaces.

What youngest part of the ocean floor is found?

mid-ocean ridges

The youngest crust of the ocean floor can be found near the seafloor spreading centers or mid-ocean ridges. As the plates split apart, magma rises from below the Earth’s surface to fill in the empty void.