Ocean Floor

A variety of geographic and geologic features make up the ocean floor provinces or regions. Shallow basins occur near the continental shelf and extend out into the continental slope and continental rise. Deep marine trenches, such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, are usually found in volcanically active regions. The Pacific Ocean has many seamounts, such as volcanoes and flat-topped guyots (drowned islands). In other places, the ocean floor forms a flat, abyssal plain, which covers more than 30 per cent of the Earth’s surface.

Appears in these articles

Abyssal Plain; Oceans and Oceanography; Pacific Guyots

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