North American Floor Abyssal Plain How Deep

They are among the flattest smoothest and least explored regions on earth.

North american floor abyssal plain how deep.

Accumulation of land derived sediments over long periods of time on the ocean floor gives rise to the flat surfaces characteristic of an abyssal plain. The abyssal plain which forms the floor of the gulf consists of a large triangular area near the centre bounded by abrupt fault scarps toward florida and the yucatán peninsula and by more gentle slopes to the north and west. It averages over two miles deep and accounts for as much 79 of the sea floor over the entire planet. The sohm plain in the north atlantic ocean covering an area of 900 000 square kilometers is one of the largest abyssal plains in the world.

Sunlight does not penetrate to the sea floor making these deep dark ecosystems less productive. They are the flattest most featureless areas on the earth and have a slope of less than one foot of elevation difference for each thousand feet of distance. Tectonic boundaries large cracks in the earth s crust where tectonic plates meet run through some areas of the abyssal plain. They are among the flattest smoothest and least explored regions on earth.

Abyssal plain the vast majority of the real estate at the bottom of the sea is a relatively flat expanse of level floor called the abyssal plain. The plain is generally 13 000 to 20 000 ft 4 000 to 6 000 m extending seaward from the base of a continental slope or from the seaward edge of an oceanic trench to the midocean ridge. Located in the world s oceans an abyssal plain is a depositional surface on the seafloor. Irregular in outline but generally elongate along continental margins the larger plains are hundreds of kilometres wide and thousands of kilometres long.

Abyssal plains are the vast flat sediment covered areas of the deep ocean floor. Abyssal plain an abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor usually found at depths between 3 000 meters and 6 000 meters. The basin is unusually flat having a gradient of only about 1 foot 0 3 metre in every 8 000 feet 2 440 metres. The lack of features is due to a thick blanket of sediment that covers most of the surface.

An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor usually found at depths between 3 000 metres 9 800 ft and 6 000 metres 20 000 ft lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid ocean ridge abyssal plains cover more than 50 of the earth s surface. Abyssal plain flat seafloor area at an abyssal depth 3 000 to 6 000 m 10 000 to 20 000 feet generally adjacent to a continent these submarine surfaces vary in depth only from 10 to 100 cm per kilometre of horizontal distance.