1. Seafloor
Features

2. Seafloor Features

3. Shoreline –
the coast

4. Continental Margin – includes: Continental shelf,
continental slope, continental rise, submarine
canyons, and turbidity currents.

5. Continental Shelf - Gently sloping part of the
continent that is underwater. Used by nations as a
legal boundary.

6. Continental Slope - Zone of steeply sloped sea
floor leading from the cont. shelf to the ocean
bottom.

7. Continental Rise - A mound of sediments that
separates the cont. slope from the ocean bottom.

8. Submarine Canyon - An area on the cont. slope
carved out by turbidity currents.

9. Underwater landslides or avalanches called turbidity currents
commonly flow down submarine canyons. The debris settles out
to build up a submarine fan at the base of the canyon.

10. Abyssal Plain – broad, flat, and deepest part of the
ocean (2000 – 6000 meters deep).

11. Continental Shelves, Slopes
and Abyssal Plains….

12. Coral reefs are warm, clear, shallow ocean habitats
that are rich in life. The reef's massive structure is
formed from coral polyps, tiny animals that live in
colonies; when coral polyps die, they leave behind a
hard, stony, branching structure made of limestone.

14. 3 types of coral reefs:
1. Fringing reefs - are reefs that form along a coastline. They
grow on the continental shelf in shallow water.
The fringing reef pictured here surrounds much of the
Polynesian island of Mooréa.

16. 2. Barrier Reefs - Barrier reefs grow parallel to
shorelines, but farther out, usually separated
from the land by a deep lagoon.
Great Barrier Island, Australia

23. Eastern
Australian
Current

25. 3. Coral Atolls - are rings of coral that grow on top of old,
sunken volcanoes in the ocean. They begin as fringe reefs
surrounding a volcanic island; then, as the volcano sinks, the reef
continues to grow, and eventually only the reef remains.

28. What are Coral Reefs…

29. Trench - Narrow channels (deepest
places on Earth) “pinched” by
subduction.

30. Rift Valley - Runs along the center of the M.O.R.
formed by faulting as magma pushed upward.

31. Mid-ocean Ridge - The
topographic expression of sea floor
spreading centers and divergent
plate boundaries.

32. Volcano – cone like feature formed from the
uprising of molten rock.

33. Island – a body of land surrounded by
water.
Loihi is a new island forming off the Big Island Of Hawaii about 30 miles South
west of Kilauea. It's summit is about 1000 meters below the ocean's surface.

34. Mountain Range – a row of connected mountains
formed from lava solidifying from the MOR.

35. Seamount - Underwater mtn.s, usually volcanic.
The biggest mtn. on earth is Mauna Loa (Hawaii)

36. What are Seamounts…

37. Guyots - Flat-topped seamounts,
formed from being above sea level.

38. Hydrothermal Vents
• Cracks in the ocean floor
through which boiling hot,
chemical-filled water
flows.
• Chimneys form around
these vents, and
organisms surround
these vents using
chemosynthesis to feed.

41. Under a microscope, a deep-sea worm’s tentacles—
used for feeding—look like cooked spaghetti. WHOI
scientists found this worm, called a terebellid, living at
hydrothermal vents on the Galápagos Rift off Ecuador.

43. Hydrothermal Vents – 5 min

44. Ocean Floor – the bottom of the
ocean.

45. A. Submarine Canyon
B. Continental Slope
C. Seamount
D. MOR
E. Atoll
F. Continental Shelf
G. Guyot
H. Trench
I. Abyssal Plain
J. Spreading Center or Rift
K. Continental Rise
L. Shoreline