Atlantic Ocean Floor Features

The northwest passage is a sea route that connects the pacific ocean to the atlantic ocean across the northern.

Atlantic ocean floor features.

From the late 19th century when the norwegian explorer fridtjof nansen first discovered an ocean in the central arctic until the middle of the 20th century it was believed that the arctic ocean was a single large basin. The atlantic ocean is the second largest of the world s oceans with an area of about 106 460 000 km 2 41 100 000 sq mi. Explorations after 1950 revealed the true complex nature of the ocean floor. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level.

The outstanding feature of the atlantic floor is the mid atlantic ridge an immense median mountain range extending throughout the length of the atlantic claiming the centre third of the ocean bed and reaching roughly 1 000 miles 1 600 km in breadth. Each country receives exclusive economic rights to any natural resource that is present on or beneath the sea floor out to a distance of 200 nautical miles beyond their natural shorelines. 18 1 the topography of the sea floor we examined the topography of the sea floor from the perspective of plate tectonics in chapter 10 but here we are going to take another look at the important features from an oceanographic perspective. Arctic ocean seafloor features map.

Among the new features they re now able to detect sandwell says are thousands of previously unknown seamounts between 1000 and 2000 meters tall dotting 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. It is separated from that of the arctic ocean by a submarine ridge extending from se greenland to n scotland. It covers approximately 20 percent of earth s surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area.

The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. The floor of the atlantic has an average depth of c 12 000 ft 3 660 m. The topography of the northern atlantic ocean is shown in figure 18 2. Arctic ocean arctic ocean topography of the ocean floor.