Ocean science news, explainers, and statistics covering marine environments, currents, climate, coasts, seafloor research, and the changing global ocean.
Bathymetry is the measurement and mapping of water depth. A bathymetric map shows the underwater relief of a lake or ocean basin, including slopes, ridges, canyons, trenches and plains. It is the submerged counterpart of a topographic map, but collecting the measurements is far harder because water hides the landscape from ordinary cameras and most…
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The continental rise is a broad, gently sloping apron of sediment at the foot of many continental slopes. It forms a transition between the steeper margin and the flatter abyssal plain. Much of its material began on land or the continental shelf before gravity flows and bottom currents carried it into deep water. A rise…
The continental slope is the steep seafloor that descends from the outer edge of the continental shelf toward the deep ocean basin. It begins near the shelf break and ends where the gradient becomes gentler at a continental rise, basin floor or trench. Across this band, depth can increase by several kilometers over a comparatively…
The continental shelf is the gently sloping seafloor that extends from the coast to the shelf break, where the bottom begins a steeper descent toward the deep ocean. Although submerged, it belongs geologically to the continent. Its shallow water, mobile sediment and close connection to land make the shelf one of the ocean’s most productive…
