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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 ...
A seafloor map captured by NASA. Bathymetry (/ b ə ˈ θ ɪ m ə t r i /; from Ancient Greek βαθύς (bathús) 'deep' and μέτρον (métron) 'measure') [1] [2] is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (seabed topography), lake floors, or river floors.
Ocean surface topography or sea surface topography, also called ocean dynamic topography, are highs and lows on the ocean surface, similar to the hills and valleys of Earth's land surface depicted on a topographic map. These variations are expressed in terms of average sea surface height (SSH) relative to Earth's geoid. [1]
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 ...
A bathymetric chart is a type of isarithmic map that depicts the submerged bathymetry and physiographic features of ocean and sea bottoms. [1] Their primary purpose is to provide detailed depth contours of ocean topography as well as provide the size, shape and distribution of underwater features.
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]
There are limitations to this technique. The distance between the sea floor and the sensor is related to the resolution of the map being created. [13] The closer the sensor is the sea floor, the higher the resolution will be and the farther away the sensor is to the sea floor, the lower the resolution will be.
Objectives of marine geophysics include determination of the depth and features of the seafloor, the seismic structure and earthquakes in the ocean basins, the mapping of gravity and magnetic anomalies over the basins and margins, the determination of heat flow through the seafloor, and electrical properties of the ocean crust and Earth's mantle.