BIOLS380

CH2: The sea floor

Done by: Yousif Adel
2.1: The water planet
Geography of the ocean basins
-The world ocean is the dominant feature on the earth in total area
-61% of the total area of the northern hemisphere is ocean, and is about
80% of the southern hemisphere
-The world ocean is divided into 4 large basins: pacific, atlantic, Indian
& arctic
-The pacific is the deepest and largest ocean
-The atlantic is a little larger than the indian ocean, but the 2 are similar
in average depth
-The arctic is the smallest and shallowest ocean
-Many shallow seas are connected or marginal to the main ocean basin
-Oceans are interconnected. This connection is most obvious when the
world ocean is viewed from the south pole
 What’s the importance of the connections among the major basins?
 Allow seawater, materials & some organisms to move from one
ocean to another

Structure of the earth

-The earth is thought to have originated 4.5 billion years ago from dust
accumulated from the big bang
-Due to heat associated with these events, the early earth was likely
molten
-This allowed materials to settle by density as the materials cooled
-Heavier materials settled deep in the earth
-Lighter components formed a thin crust
-Eventually, the earth’s oceans and atmosphere began to form
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-The location of the earth relative to the sun allows for water to stay
liquid (an essential substance for sustaining life)
-The densest material flowed toward the center of the planet, while
lighter ones floated toward the surface
-The light surface material cooled into a thin crust
-The atmosphere and oceans began to form

Internal structure of the earth

1. Core: innermost layer, solid inner core & liquid outer core; iron-rich
2. Mantle: middle layer; semi-plastic composition
3. Crust: outermost layer; thinnest portion of the earth

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Continental vs. oceanic crust
Oceanic crust Continental crust
Dark-colored mineral (basalt) Light-colored (mostly granite)
Denser than continental crust; younger Less dense; some crust as old as
than continental crust (less than 200 3.8 billion years old
million years old)
-Table 2.2 (Very important)

2.2: The origin & structure of the ocean basins

Continental drift
-Proposed in 1912 by alfred wegner
-Suggested that all continents had been joined in a single supercontinent
(pangaea)
-Proposed that pangaea began up 180 million years ago
-Not widely accepted at the time

The theory of plate tectonics

-Wegener was not able to explain how the continents moved
-In late 1950s & 1960s, scientists were able to put all the evidence
together
-They concluded that the continents did drift, as part of larger plates in
the process of plate tectonics
-Plate tectonics explains the “how” behind wegner’s continental drift
theory

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 The main features of plate tectonics:
1. The earth’s surface is covered by a series of lithospheric plates
2. The ocean floors are constantly moving; spreading in the center
and sinking at the edges and being regenerated
3. Convection currents beneath the plates assist movement
4. Heat from the mantle drives these currents

Evidence for plate tectonics

-Mid-oceanic ridges:
-A chain of submarine volcanic mountains that rise from the ocean floor
-At regular intervals, the ridge is moved by faults in the earth’s crust
(transform faults)
-Sediment accumulates, therefore being thicker away from the ridges,
means that the crust further from the ridge is older
-Surveys of the sea floor revealed the existence of a system of deep
depressions in the sea floor (trenches)
-Trenches are especially common in the pacific

Transform faults
-Fault: a crack in the earth crust usually formed when 2 pieces of crust
are moving past each other

Significance of the mid ocean ridge

-Geologist realized that geological activity is concentrated around mid-
ocean ridge
-Earthquakes are clustered at the ridge and volcanoes are associated with
trenches
-The nature of the sea floor is related to the mid-ocean ridge
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-Sea floor rock at the ridge is very young and gets older moving away
from the ridge

Significance of mid ocean ridge

Evidence for plate tectonics
-The earth magnetic field periodically reverses direction
-The reversal in the magnetic field is thought to be caused by changes in
the motion of material in the iron-rich outer core of the earth
-Geomagnetic anomalies:
-At random intervals, the earth's magnetic field reverses
-New rock formed from magma records the orientation
of earth's magnetic field at the time the magma cools
-Studies of the seafloor have revealed "stripes" of alternating
magnetization parallel to the mid-oceanic ridges

Creation of the sea floor

-Huge blocks of the oceanic crust are separating at the mid ocean ridges,
creating cracks in the crust (rifts)
-The mantle materials or magma pushes up the oceanic crust around the
rift to form mid-ocean ridge
-When the molten material reaches the surface, it cools and solidifies to
form new oceanic crust
-The process repeats itself as the sea floor continues to move away from
the mid ocean ridge
-The entire process by which the sea floor moves away from the mid
ocean ridge to create new sea floor (sea floor spreading) and the ridges
are called (spreading centers)

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Sea floor spreading & plate tectonics
-The earth surface is covered by rigid layer composed of the crust and
the uppermost part of the mantle. This layer is the lithosphere
-It is broken into a number of plates (lithospheric plates / tectonic plates)
-A plate can contain continental crust, oceanic crust or both
-The lithosphere floats on a denser more plastic layer or the upper
mantle (the asthenosphere)
-Mid-ocean ridges form the edges of many plates
-The lithospheric plates move apart and new sea floor is created
-If the plate includes a block of continental crust, the continent is carried
along with the plate as it moves away from the ridge
-This is the mechanism of continental drift
-As new lithosphere is created, old one is destroyed somewhere else
-Lithosphere is destroyed at trenches (another important boundary
between plates)
-A trench is formed when 2 plates collide and one of the plates dips
below the other and sinks back down into the mantle
-This downward movement of the plate into the mantle is called
subduction, and trenches are called subduction zones
 The collisions that produce a trench can be either:
1. Between an oceanic plate & a continent
2. Between 2 oceanic plates

 When an oceanic plate collides with a continent, it is always the

oceanic plate that descends into the mantle. Why?
 Because the continental block is less dense than the oceanic plate
& floats on top

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-When oceanic and continental plates collide, continental volcanoes
develop behind the trench
-When 2 oceanic plates collide, one of the plates dips beneath the other
to form the trench
-The trench is associated with earthquakes & volcanoes
-The volcanoes may rise from the sea floor to create chains of volcanic
islands
-The volcanic island chains associated with the trenches follow the
trenches curvature and are called island arcs
-Occasionally 2 continental plates collide
-Both plates float and neither is subducted
-Therefore, no trench is formed, instead the 2 continental blocks push
against each other with such tremendous force that the continents
become fused together
-There is a third type of plate boundary in addition to trenches and mid
ocean ridge
-Sometimes 2 plates move in such a way that they slide past each other,
neither creating nor destroying lithosphere (shear boundary)
-Geologist thought the most likely explanation for what makes the plates
move was convection, in which heat from the earth core causes the
mantle to spin

Evidence of plate tectonics

-Island Arcs:
-Chains of islands are found throughout the oceans, especially in the
western Pacific
-Usually situated along the continental side of deep-sea trenches

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-These observations (along with many other studies of our planet)
support the theory that underneath the earth's crust is a layer of heated
rock driving the creation of a new ocean floor

The record in the marine sediments

Lithogenous sediments Biogenous sediments
Derived from the break-down of Derived from the skeletons &
rocks (weathering) shells of marine organisms

What can we learn from marine sediments?

-Biogenous sediments (composed of microfossils) can reveal
information from the past
-The age of these sediments can be determined using carbon dating
-Ocean temperature at the time the microfossils were deposited can also
be determined

2.3: Continental margins

-The margins of continents are boundaries between continental crust &
oceanic crust
-They generally consist of:
1. Continental shelf (most landward)
2. Continental slope
3. Continental rise (most seaward)

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The continental shelf
-Makes up about 8% of the ocean’s surface area
-It’s the richest area of the ocean in number of species (biodiversity)
-Its width varies from 1 km (0.6 mi) - 750 km (470 mi)
-The shelf ends at the shelf break, at a depth of 120-400 m (9,400-1,300
ft)

Continental slope
-It can be thought of as the “edge” of a continent
-Begins at the shelf break and extends to the deep-sea floor
-It is much steeper than the continental shelf and continental rise

Continental rise
-Formed by sediments that have been pushed down from the continental
shelf and slope
-Can be thought of as an underwater river delta (the river in this case is
formed of sediments)
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Types of continental margins
Passive margins Active margins
Active/Inactive Inactive geologically Sites of more intense
geologic activity including
earthquakes, volcanoes &
trenches

Characteristics Flat, wide coastal plains Steep, rocky shorelines

Wide continental shelves Narrow continental shelves
Gradually sloping continental slopes Steep continental slopes

Example East coast of the US & western West coast of the U.S. &
hemisphere western hemisphere

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Do it yourself summary
Read each sentence and identify the word/phrase that you believe
correctly completes the statement. Then check the answer key at the end
below to see if your answers are correct.
1. The major basins of the world ocean are the …., …., …. and …... The
ocean around Antarctica is often called the …...
2. The …. of a substance is calculated by dividing its mass by its volume
3. The three main divisions of the earth's interior are the …., the …...,
and the …...
4. A long chain of submarine volcanic mountains that runs through the
world ocean is called the …... system
5. Sea floor is created at …. and destroyed at …...
6. In the process of …., a lithospheric plate descends into the …...
7. A single supercontinent called …… began to break up into the
present-day continents about …… years ago
8. The two most abundant types of marine sediment are …… sediment,
which comes from rocks, & …… sediment, which is produced by
organisms
9. The continental margin consists of the continental …, the continental
……, and the continental …….
10. Most of the deep-sea floor, or ……, is between …… and …….
meters deep
11. Deep-sea hot springs, or ……, are places at the mid-ocean ridge
from which hot water emerges

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Answer key
1. pacific / atlantic / indian / arctic / southern ocean
2. density
3. core / mantle / crust
4. mid-ocean ridge
5. mid-ocean ridges / trenches
6. subduction / mantle
7. pangaea / 180 million
8. lithogenous / biogenous
9. shelf / slope / rise
10. abyssal plain / 3000 / 5000
11. hydrothermal vents

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