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.

This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. Mid ocean ridges deep sea trenches and other features all rise sharply above or plunge deeply below the abyssal plains. Tides and ocean currents. 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.

Early civilizations believed the ocean floor to be a smooth bowl devoid of features or life. We have big news. Like even the flattest grasslands the world s oceans have varied elevations. Vocabulary abyssal plain the flat bottom of the ocean floor.

We re aren t just talking about the ocean floor but the actual surface of the ocean. Benthos is the community of organisms which live on in or near the seabed the area known as the benthic zone. Thirdly there are waves and currents in. Back in 1977 a very interesting discovery was made on the deep ocean floor where no light penetrates.

Firstly the earth is round so the ocean cannot be flat. However the ocean floor is not flat. The globe isn t flat and neither are the world s oceans. While most life on this planet requires sunlight to live there is an.

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. 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. Navigators of ships and submarines are interested in avoiding dangers or impediments to their progress. The difference is sea level is caused by two major factors.

Continental shelf the shallow gradually sloping seabed around the edge of a. For instance the absolute water level height is higher along the west coast of the united states than the east coast. If the mid ocean ridge is created where the tectonic plates separate why is a mountain range formed there. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur.

Secondly the sun and the moon s gravity are pulling on the ocean surface causing it to bulge. 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. They are defined by oceanographers as independent. 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.