Most Extensive Part Of Oceanic Floor

This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level.

Most extensive part of oceanic floor. Epicentre of the great earthquakes are all found in the trenches. The most prominent feature on the ocean floor are the. New oceanic crust is created at the ridge crests by sea floor spreading. Trenches are the deepest part of the oceans and occupy about 7 of the total relief of the ocean floor.

Thus the crests mark con structive plate boundaries where the earth s lithospheric plates are moving apart. The nearly continuous global mid ocean ridge system snakes across the earth s surface like the seams on a baseball. As they are sediment free most trenches are v shaped with steep sides. As a result of this separation hot material from the asthenosphere the layer below the lithosphere itself com prised of the crust and the top part of the mantle.

There are oceanic basins farther north that are as much as 14 800 feet 4 500 metres deep defined by oceanic rises and often marked by ranges of abyssal hills. The ocean has a three part layered structure surface mixed zone transitional zone and deep zone at all latitudes. The structure of the ocean floor includes a continental shelf usually less than 160 miles about 260 km wide that attains its maximum width of more than 1 600 miles 2 600 km in the vicinity of the weddell and ross seas. Continental margins occur where oceanic lithosphere is being subducted beneath the edge of a continent.

Most parts of the sea floor are covered in sediments and the sediments are formed by several different sources and are highly variable in their composition. The material can be different and it depends on the proximity of that sea floor to a certain continent depth of the water the currents of the ocean biological activity and climate. Typically finely wrought ocean maps have been the result of extensive sonar. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet.

The ocean temperature in the trench is slightly cooler than the freezing temperature. Most seamounts are volcanic in origin and thus tend to be found on oceanic crust near mid ocean ridges mantle plumes and island arcs. Overall seamount and guyot coverage is greatest as a proportion of seafloor area in the north pacific ocean equal to 4 39 of that ocean region. The most extensive mountain range on earth extends for about 65 000 kilometers on the ocean floor and is known as.

The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur.