Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.
Calcareous ooze is deep-sea sediment dominated by calcium carbonate remains, chiefly from microscopic organisms such as foraminifera and coccolithophores. Siliceous ooze is dominated by silica remains from diatoms or radiolarians. Their distributions record plankton productivity, water chemistry, depth and the supply of sediment from land. Marine geologists commonly apply the word ooze when biogenic remains…
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A seamount is an underwater mountain rising steeply from the seafloor, usually with a volcanic origin. A guyot is a seamount with a broad, flat summit. The flat top records a period when waves eroded the volcano near sea level before the crust beneath it cooled, subsided or otherwise carried it into deeper water. NOAA…
A submarine canyon is a steep-sided valley cut into the seafloor, usually across a continental shelf or slope. Some begin near a river mouth, while others start far offshore. Their channels can descend for kilometers and extend into the deep ocean, giving sediment, organic matter and water a direct route across the continental margin. Canyons…
An abyssal plain is an exceptionally flat part of the deep-ocean floor, commonly found between a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge. It lies beneath several kilometers of water and is covered by sediment that hides the rough volcanic crust below. On a relief map of Earth, abyssal plains rank among the smoothest large surfaces…
