Deep Seafloor Definition

The deep ocean bottom is continually renewed through seafloor spreading see seafloor spreading hypothesis.

Deep seafloor definition.

Thus for each segment of new ocean floor created at the ridges an equal amount of old oceanic crust is destroyed at the trenches or so called subduction zones. English language learners definition of seafloor. The seafloor was mapped by shipborne magnetometers in the 1950s and produced puzzling results sequential zones of normal and reverse magnetic polarity spreading out from the oceanic ridges. Later theories showed that this was due to the reversing nature of earth s magnetic field.

Little or no light penetrates this part of the ocean and most of the organisms that live there rely for subsistence on falling organic matter produced in the photic zone. While the ocean has an average depth of 2 3 miles the shape and depth of the seafloor is complex. The bottom of a sea or ocean. The solid surface underlying a sea or an ocean.

The organisms in this zone are sometimes referred to as intraterrestrials. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. Seafloor synonyms seafloor pronunciation seafloor translation english dictionary definition of seafloor. On continents it is below a few meters not including soils.

Some features like canyons and seamounts might look familiar while others such as hydrothermal vents and methane seeps are unique to the deep. The deep sea or deep layer is the lowest layer in the ocean existing below the thermocline and above the seabed at a depth of 1000 fathoms or more. For the seafloor an operational definition of deep subsurface is the region that is not bioturbated by animals. Relatively little is known about life on the antarctic seafloor.

For this reason scientists once assumed that life would be sparse in the deep ocean but virtually every probe has revealed that on the contrary life is abundant in the deep o. At the deep sea trenches two plates converge with one plate sliding down under the other into the mantle where it is melted. Examples of how to use seafloor in a sentence from the cambridge dictionary labs. Oceanic crust is created at the mid oceanic ridges as a consequence of extrusive igneous activity and moves away carrying along overlying sediments.

American heritage dictionary of the english language fifth edition.