Is The Ocean Floor Flat

Seabed topography is flat where sedimentation is heavy and covers the tectonic features.

Is the ocean floor flat.

Regions of the ocean floor can be distinguished by topographical margins e g. The ocean floor or seabed refers to earth s top most layer of thin basalt rock that is submerged beneath seawater. The lack of weathering and erosion in most areas however allows geological processes to be seen more clearly on. Plate tectonics and the ocean floor.

On average oceanic crust is only 6 to 7km thick compared to 35 to 40km for con tinental crust. Like even the flattest grasslands the world s oceans have varied elevations. Tides and ocean currents. The smooth flat regions that make up 40 of the ocean floor are the abyssal plain.

The globe isn t flat and neither are the world s oceans. The ocean floor has the same general character as the land areas of the world. Other articles where ocean floor is discussed. Running through all the world s oceans is a continuous mountain range called the mid ocean ridge submarine ridge in figure 14 23.

We have big news. Sediments comes from various sources. Mountains plains channels canyons exposed rocks and sediment covered areas. 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.

For instance the absolute water level height is higher along the west coast of the united states than the east coast. The ocean basins are characterized not only by lying in deep water the ocean floor averages about 4km below sea level but also by being underlain by a thin layer of crust. Exploration of the seafloor and the earth s crust. We re aren t just talking about the ocean floor but the actual surface of the ocean.

These ridges mark the sites where the earth s surface plates are being created. A series of volcanic ridges cuts through all the oceans. The process that continually adds new material to the ocean floor is seafloor spreading and the continental slope. The difference is sea level is caused by two major factors.

Deep ocean troughs occur in places where one of the earth s plates is being pulled down beneath another and destroyed. The floor of the ocean has a very varied topography.