What Is The Ocean Floor Made Of

Bathymetry the shape of the ocean floor is largely a result of a process called plate tectonics the outer rocky layer of the earth includes about a dozen large sections called tectonic plates that are arranged like a spherical jig saw puzzle floating on top of the earth s hot flowing mantle.

What is the ocean floor made of.

Oceans cover nearly 71 percent of earth s surface. It s flat blue and honestly it s kind of boring. In the deepest parts of the. Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of a tectonic plate it is composed of the upper oceanic crust with pillow lavas and a dike complex and the lower oceanic crust composed of troctolite gabbro and ultramafic cumulates.

2 biogenous material is the sediment made up of the hard parts of sea animals that accumulate on the bottom of. But underneath that surface there s a lot of stuff hidden at the bottom. The crust overlies the solidified and uppermost layer of the mantle the crust and the solid mantle layer together constitute oceanic lithosphere. The ocean floor has the same general character as the land areas of the world.

Other articles where ocean floor is discussed. 1 terrigenous describes the sediment derived from the materials eroded by rain rivers glaciers and that which is blown into the ocean by the wind such as volcanic ash. How to use ocean in a sentence. The lack of weathering and erosion in most areas however allows geological processes to be seen more clearly on.

Oceanic crust the outermost layer of earth s lithosphere that is found under the oceans and formed at spreading centres on oceanic ridges which occur at divergent plate boundaries. An ocean is a huge body of salt water. Mountains plains channels canyons exposed rocks and sediment covered areas. These vary from oozes made of carbonate from foraminiferal and calcareous phytoplankton and some silica that has settled through the water column.

Back in 1977 a very interesting discovery was made on the deep ocean floor where no light penetrates. Ocean definition is the whole body of salt water that covers nearly three fourths of the surface of the earth. Plate tectonics and the ocean floor. Exploration of the seafloor and the earth s crust.

They contain almost 98 percent of all the water on earth. Oceanic crust is about 6 km 4 miles thick. From land the ocean all looks the same. It is composed of several layers not including the overlying sediment.