Exploring the Ocean floor Notes
- People have a difficult time studying the ocean floor because of three reasons.
- The ocean floor is totally dark, the water is really cold, and the pressure under the water is really high.
- Scientist had to create technology that could help them study the ocean floor without any trouble.
- These technology has sonars, scubas, submersibles, satellites, remote underwater manipulators, and gravity mapping.
- Sonars is used to take sound waves, and calculate the distance of objects on the sea floor.
- On the edge of a continental shelf or a continent's edge that is gently sloping, he ocean floor drops in a steep incline called the continental slope.
- Beyond that area is the abyssal plain, which is a smooth and almost flat area on the ocean floor.
- There are also deep and steep-sided trenches which cut within the abyssal plains.
- A lot of mountains following each other is called the mid-ocean ridges.
- This also lies on abyssal plains too. Some volcanic islands called sea mounts lies completely under water.
- Earth is made of layers that lies around it's core.
- The outer later is the crust which is a thin rocky surface.
- The other layer lies between the Crust and the Earth's core called the mantle.
- The mantle contains a magma, which makes its way through cracks, until it reaches the crust.
- Once magma reaches the surface, it becomes lava.
- Earth also contains plates that float on top of the mantle.
- These plates move, which results to creating different landforms. This is called sea floor spreading.
- Those landforms are mid-ocean ridges, trenches, and underwater volcanoes.
The Ocean Floor