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An oceanic or submarine plateau is a large, relatively flat elevation that is higher than the surrounding relief with one or more relatively steep sides. [ 1 ] There are 184 oceanic plateaus in the world, covering an area of 18,486,600 km 2 (7,137,700 sq mi) or about 5.11% of the oceans. [ 2 ]
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'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of the ocean is very deep, where the seabed is known as the abyssal plain. Seafloor spreading creates ...
Marine geology or geological oceanography is the study of the history and structure of the ocean floor. It involves geophysical, geochemical, sedimentological and paleontological investigations of the ocean floor and coastal zone. Marine geology has strong ties to geophysics and to physical oceanography.
An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) and 6,000 meters (20,000 ft).Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains are among the flattest, smoothest and least explored regions on Earth. [1]
The Nazca plate or Nasca plate, [2] named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America. The ongoing subduction, along the Peru–Chile Trench, of the Nazca plate under the South American plate is largely responsible for the Andean orogeny.
The oceanic crust displays a pattern of magnetic lines, parallel to the ocean ridges, frozen in the basalt. A symmetrical pattern of positive and negative magnetic lines emanates from the mid-ocean ridge. [24] New rock is formed by magma at the mid-ocean ridges, and the ocean floor spreads out from this point.
GEBCO is the only intergovernmental body with a mandate to map the whole ocean floor. At the beginning of the project, only 6 per cent of the world's ocean bottom had been surveyed to today's standards; as of June 2022, the project had recorded 23.4 per cent mapped. About 14,500,000 square kilometres (5,600,000 sq mi) of new bathymetric data ...
The continental shelf is the relatively shallow water area found in proximity to continents; it is the portion of the continental margin that transitions from the shore out towards to ocean. Continental shelves are believed to make up 7% of the sea floor. [3] The width of continental shelves worldwide varies in the range of 0.03–1500 km. [4]