1 / 35

The Ocean Floor

The Ocean Floor. Description of. Bottom Topography. Atlantic Ocean Continental Shelf. Typical Oceanic Profile. ocean basin. continental margin. coastal region. oceanic ridge. continental shelf. Slope. Abyssal plain. Depth > 4000 m. The Continental Margin. continental margin.

yehuda
Download Presentation

The Ocean Floor

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. The Ocean Floor

  2. Description of Bottom Topography

  3. Atlantic Ocean Continental Shelf

  4. Typical Oceanic Profile ocean basin continental margin coastalregion oceanic ridge continental shelf Slope Abyssal plain Depth > 4000 m

  5. The Continental Margin continental margin ocean basin shelf break coastalregion oceanic ridge continental shelf Slope Abyssal plain continental rise > 4000 m

  6. Continental Margin Fig. 2-3a

  7. Continental Shelf

  8. Coastal Region • Includes: •beaches •estuaries • lagoons • marshes • deltas coastal region Most important region to humans And marine birds and mammals

  9. Beaches

  10. Typical Salt Marsh

  11. Mangrove Swamp

  12. Continental Shelf • Definition: shallow part of ocean bottom next to coastline continental margin • SLOPE is less than 0.1° angle continental shelf Slope continental rise

  13. Most exposed in Pleistocene

  14. Continental Slope and Rise • Slope is 1° to 6° • Rise: less than 1° • Slope & rise can be cut by submarine canyons Slope Continental rise

  15. Overlapping fans=cones See Fig. 2-3a

  16. San Lucas Submarine Canyon 2 meters

  17. Typical Oceanic Profile continental margin ocean basin shelfbreak oceanic ridge continental shelf Slope Abyssal plain continental rise

  18. Ocean Basins Are the deep flat areas of the ocean

  19. Deep Ocean Basins Fig. 2-3b

  20. Seamounts and Guyots- undersea mountains that risemore than 1 km from the seafloor SEAMOUNT Top is rounded May rise above the surface and form an island GUYOT Top flattened by waves

  21. 3 Major Oceanic Ridges Mid-Atlantic Ridge Carlsberg Ridge E. Pacific Rise

  22. Characteristics of Oceanic Mountain Ridges • Total length: 60,000 km • Present in all oceans • Between 1,000 and 4,000 km wide • mountains are2 - 4 km high • The largest is the Mid Atlantic Ridge half that separatat

  23. Mid-Ocean Ridges Fig. 2-3c

  24. Mid-Atlantic Ridge Shallow valleys 20 - 30 km wide with high volcanic activity

  25. Oceanic Trenches • 31 in the world; • Deep; U or V shaped •These form the deepest places on Earth • Max 130 km wide, 1500 km long

  26. Distribution of Trenches

  27. Kurile 10,500m Mariana 11,000m Tonga 10,880m 3 _________ trenches

  28. Island Arcs are associated with volcanoes

  29. shelf Ridge shelf slope slope hills plains Atlantic Ocean island arc plain seamounts slope ridge Pacific Ocean trench

  30. At a hydrothermal vent, sea water that has sunken into cracks in the ocean crust and been heated (sometimes to over 180 degrees!) by the interior of the earth escapes through crust cracks back into the ocean. HYDROTHERMAL VENTS or BLACK SMOKERS • http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/nemo/explorer/multimedia.html

  31. The superheated water beneath the oceanic crust often dissolves minerals from nearby rocks. • The precipitating minerals often give vent fluids different colored “smoky” appearances.

  32. As hot vent fluids meet cold ocean water, minerals precipitate (fall) out of vent fluids. • The precipitating minerals form “chimneys” and other formations on the sea floor.

  33. Hydrothermal Vent Sites

More Related