Floor Of An Ocean Basin

In fact it will.

Floor of an ocean basin.

About 70 of the planet s surface is made up of ocean basins which are the regions that are below sea level these areas hold the majority of the planet s water. The only exception are the crests of the spreading centres where new ocean floor has not existed long enough to accumulate a sediment cover. Oceanographers also recognize the southern ocean which encircles antarctica and includes the southernmost parts of the pacific. Together they contain the overwhelming majority of all water on the planet and have an average depth of almost 4 km about 2 5 miles.

Continuing your journey across the ocean basin you would descend the steep continental slope to the abyssal plain. The ocean basins are partially bounded by the continents but they are interconnected which is why marine scientists refer to a single world ocean the world ocean is divided into the north and south pacific north and south atlantic indian and arctic oceans. Sunlight does not penetrate to the sea floor making these deep dark ecosystems less productive than those along. Since the new oceanic basins are shallower than the old oceanic basins the total capacity of the world s ocean basins decreases during times of active sea floor spreading.

A number of major features of the basins depart. The ocean basin floor is everywhere covered by sediments of different types and origins. Ocean basin floor the ocean floor in those parts of the oceans that are more than 2000 m deep. Sediment thickness in the oceans averages about 450 metres 1 500 feet.

It occupies approximately one third of the atlantic and indian ocean floors and three quarters of the pacific ocean floor. From studying the oxygen isotopes of the shells of microfossils in these cores scientists were able to begin studying the earth s past climates in a study known as paleoclimatology. During the opening of the atlantic ocean sea level was so high that a western interior seaway formed across north america from the gulf of mexico to the arctic ocean. Older references e g littlehales 1930 consider the oceanic basins to be the complement to the continents with erosion dominating the latter and the sediments so derived ending up in the ocean basins.

At depths of over 10 000 feet and covering 70 of the ocean floor abyssal plains are the largest habitat on earth. Ocean basin any of several vast submarine regions that collectively cover nearly three quarters of earth s surface.