Interesting Facts About The Ocean Floor

Man has been searching for wonders that lay on the ocean floor for centuries.

Interesting facts about the ocean floor.

Because the water around these depressions contains more salt than normal seawater it s denser and sinks into the depressions creating. Oceanographers use sonar to map the ocean floor. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. With 25 000 islands lying within it the pacific ocean has more islands than anywhere else on the planet.

Around 70 of the planet s surface is covered by oceans. Three quarters of this planet is covered by water bodies with the biggests ones being the five oceans the atlantic pacific southern indian and arctic oceans. Not only does a large part of the planet exist beneath the ocean so does the united states around 50 per cent in fact. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level.

As seawater makes its way through layers of salt it forms little depressions on the ocean floor. 44 facts about the ocean in no particular order earth is mostly water. In fact the oceans hold about 96 5 of all water on earth. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur.

The largest ocean on earth is the pacific ocean covering around 30 of the earth s surface. Around 50 per cent of the us lies beneath the ocean. The pacific ocean is the world s largest ocean and contains around 25 000 islands. The research ship directs sound waves at the bottom and charts the echoes that bounce back to create a detailed map.

The ocean is like an entirely separate world. In fact it has been said that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the deeper ocean trenches. There are many amazing and fun facts about the ocean floor you may not know. The trenches around the edges of the eastern pacific ocean are shallower than are those of the western pacific.

The mariana trench the world s deepest submarine de pression is more than 11 000m below sea level in some parts about 7 000m below the mean depth of the ocean floor. Sonar has revealed features such as seamounts submerged volcanic peaks which rise 1 000 m 3 300 ft from the sea floor and guyots flat topped seamounts. We know very little about the deep ocean floor and the life it holds due to the depth and the difficulties this creates for scientists. The world s oceans cover more than 71 percent of the earth s surface but people have only explored about five percent of it.

Take a deep breath gang as we dive into our ocean facts top ten ocean facts. The ocean floor covers 70 of the earth s surface.