Definition Of Ocean Floor Topography

The main purpose of measuring ocean surface topography is to understand.

Definition of ocean floor topography.

This study is extensive and it has been established that the ocean floor has similar features of mountains and valleys as on the earth. The ocean floor is literally the floor of the ocean. 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. Benthos is the community of organisms which live on in or near the seabed the area known as the benthic zone.

The landscape of the ocean floor is much like what you see on land just way more dramatic and without all that life. The under water topography maps have been developed by the study of ocean floor topography. Ocean surface topography or sea surface topography also called ocean dynamic topography are highs and lows on the ocean surface similar to the hills and valleys of earth s land surface depicted on a topographic map these variations are expressed in terms of average sea surface height ssh relative to the earth s geoid. Bathymetry the shape of the ocean floor is largely a result of a process called plate tectonics the outer rocky layer of the earth includes about a dozen large sections called tectonic plates that are arranged like a spherical jig saw puzzle floating on top of the earth s hot flowing mantle.

Explorations after 1950 revealed the true complex nature of the ocean floor. This community lives in or near marine sedimentary environments from tidal pools along the foreshore out to the continental shelf and then down to the abyssal depths the benthic zone is the ecological region on in and immediately above the seabed including the sediment surface.