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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 ...
Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic cumulates. [1] [2] The crust overlies the rigid uppermost layer of the mantle.
Abyssal plains cover more than 33% of the ocean floor (about 23% of Earth's surface), [2] but they are poorly preserved in the sedimentary record because they tend to be consumed by the subduction process. [1] [3] [4] The abyssal plain is formed when the lower oceanic crust is melted and forced upwards by the asthenosphere layer of the upper ...
Stratified layers are a barrier to the mixing of water, which impacts the exchange of heat, carbon, oxygen and other nutrients. [1] The surface mixed layer is the uppermost layer in the ocean and is well mixed by mechanical (wind) and thermal (convection) effects. Climate change is causing the upper ocean stratification to increase.
Oceanic trenches are prominent, long, narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, but can be thousands of kilometers in length.
Uncovering life in this previously unknown subhabitat suggests there may be many more organisms than scientists have documented within the ocean’s depths or along its floor, said Alex Rogers ...
The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. [8] In English, the term ocean also refers to any of the large bodies of water into which the world ocean is conventionally divided. [9] The following names describe five different areas of the ocean: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic/Southern, and Arctic.
These clusters of sensors—which are hooked onto vertical strands that are 700 meters (about 2,200 feet) long—detect and separate three distinct layers of particle noise. Layer one is the ...