Ocean science news, explainers, and statistics covering marine environments, currents, climate, coasts, seafloor research, and the changing global ocean.
A continental margin is the submerged transition from a continent to the deep ocean basin. It begins near the coast and ordinarily includes the continental shelf, the steeper continental slope and a lower sediment-covered region called the continental rise. Together, those provinces record how continental crust meets oceanic crust and how material moves from land…
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The hadal zone is the ocean deeper than 6,000 meters, or about 19,700 feet. It occupies isolated trenches and troughs rather than forming a continuous layer across every basin. Its deepest known point, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, approaches 11,000 meters below sea level. The name comes from Hades, the ancient Greek underworld. NOAA…
The abyssopelagic zone occupies the ocean water column from roughly 4,000 to 6,000 meters, or 13,100 to 19,700 feet. Sunlight never reaches it. Temperatures commonly remain near 2 to 3 degrees Celsius and pressure rises from about 400 to 600 times atmospheric pressure at sea level. It is the deepest broad layer above the ocean’s…
The bathypelagic zone begins near 1,000 meters and extends to roughly 4,000 meters (13,100 feet). Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution calls it the midnight zone. Sunlight has disappeared by its upper boundary, leaving biological light as the only visible illumination. The midnight layer crosses deep basins and the slopes surrounding them, yet its water is divided…
