What is a seafloor topography?

What is a seafloor topography?

What is a seafloor topography?

Ocean floor topography refers to the different forms in which the ocean floor bottom can exist. Science has established that the topography of the ocean floor is similar to the ground topography with features such as valleys, mountains, and plateaus. Three quarters of the Earth consists of ocean water.

How would you describe the seafloor?

Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—large slabs of Earth’s lithosphere—split apart from each other. As tectonic plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense.

What is on the ocean floor for kids?

The bottom of the ocean is called the ocean floor. Just like the land above the surface, the ocean floor has mountains, volcanoes, deep trenches, and plants and animals.

What maps show the seafloor topography?

Bathymetric Maps Topographic maps of the sea floor. Detailed depth contours provide the size, shape and distribution of underwater features.

What are the two main types of currents?

The two basic types of currents – surface and deep-water currents – help define the character and flow of ocean waters across the planet.

What are the names of 3 major ocean basins?

The Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans are conventional ocean basins and are bounded by the continental masses or by ocean ridges and currents; they merge below 40° South latitude in the Antarctic Circumpolar current, or west Wind Drift, at the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean.

How is an ocean floor formed?

Plate tectonics and the ocean floor Bathymetry, the shape of the ocean floor, is largely a result of a process called plate tectonics. Where plates diverge from each other, molten magma flows upward between the plates, forming mid-ocean ridges, underwater volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, and new ocean floor crust.

Is an ocean a topographic feature?

Ocean and land topography are defined exactly the same way. Both give the height of the ocean or land above the geoid. The geoid is the shape the sea surface would have if all the currents and tides stopped. Tides and currents are the two major factors that contribute to the dynamic topography of the ocean’s surface.

What is the difference between topographic and geologic maps?

Topographic maps reveal the shape of a landscape. Elevations indicate height above sea level. Geologic maps show rock units and geologic features like faults and folds.