Facts About The Deep Ocean Floor

Many of these are formed by the movement of the tectonic plates that make up earth s crust.

Facts about the deep ocean floor.

The world s largest museum is the ocean. Many of these newly discovered species live deep on the ocean floor in unique habitats that depend on plate movement underwater volcanoes and cold water seeps. Other articles where ocean floor is discussed. Exploration of the seafloor and the earth s crust.

The lack of weathering and erosion in most areas however allows geological processes to be seen more clearly on. New species are discovered in the ocean each year by marine biologists and other ocean scientists. Underwater you can find relics artifacts ruins and shipwrecks that number more than what you can find in the world s museums combined. Deep ocean hydrothermal vent ecosystems were discovered in 1977.

Most of this landscape is still unexplored. Now we know that the deep oceans have features such as mountains deep valleys and vast plains. In japanese chikyu means earth and that s what this formidable research vessel completed in 2005 was designed to study it can drill up to 23 000 feet 7 000 meters below the ocean floor to obtain sediments from earth s crust. Only a tiny percentage of the ocean floor has been carefully mapped which means we know less about 71 percent of the earth s landscape than about the far side of the moon.

The derrick holding the chikyu s drill stands 328 feet 100 meters high the tallest in the world. On average oceanic crust is only 6 to 7km thick compared to 35 to 40km for con tinental crust. The ocean floor covers 70 of the earth s surface. Cousteau submerged his camera to the sea floor of the romanche trench in the atlantic ocean some 24 500 feet down providing the first glimpse of this previously unseen part of the ocean.

Just a century ago the ocean floor was largely unknown. The ocean floor is the largest landscape on earth. Far below the ocean s surface volcanic mountain. No other research ship has ever drilled that deep.

Mountains plains channels canyons exposed rocks and sediment covered areas. We know very little about the deep ocean floor and the life it holds due to the depth and the difficulties this creates for scientists. The ocean basins are characterized not only by lying in deep water the ocean floor averages about 4km below sea level but also by being underlain by a thin layer of crust. The ocean floor has the same general character as the land areas of the world.

Kelp can grow up to two feet per day so these forests can grow on the ocean floor a hundred fifty feet deep and reach the surface of the water. Beneath the oceans are mountains as high as the himalayas rugged mountain ranges longer than any on land vast plains deep canyons and trenches plunging thousands of yards into the earth s crust.