Oceanography Test #2
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22 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Shoreline | The boundary between land and a body of water. |
| Coral Reef | A large mass of limestone rocks surrounding a volcanic island in tropical waters near a continental shelf. |
| Continental Shelf | A gently sloping, shallow area of the ocean floor that extends outward from the edge of a continent. Part of the continental margin |
| Continental Slope | A part of the continental margin at the edge of a continental shelf where the ocean floor plunges steeply from 4-5 kilometers. |
| Continental Rise | A part of the continental margin that separates a continental slope from the ocean floor. |
| Submarine Canyon | A deep canyon that cuts into the Continetal Shelf. |
| Abyssal Plain | A large, very flat area of the ocean floor. |
| Seamount | An underwater mountain rising above the ocean floor. |
| Guyot | A flat topped seamount. It has become flat because of erosion. |
| Trench | A long, narrow, and deep part of the ocean floor. |
| Mid-ocean Ridge | An undersea mountain range where new ocean floor is produced. It is a divergent plate boundary. |
| Rift Valley | A valley in the ocean floor. |
| Convergent Boundary | A place where two plates collide. This action destroys crust. |
| Divergent Boundary | A place where two plates are spreading apart. This creates more crust as lava comes up and cools down-thus making more crust. |
| Transform Boundary | The place where two plates move side bye side. |
| The Theory of Continental Drift | The theory that the continents were once joined and then drifted apart. This was discovered by Alfred Wagner. |
| Plate Tectonics | The theory that explains how large pieces of the crust or lithosphere, called plates, move and change shape. |
| Equator | An imaginary line around the Earth forming the great circle that is of an equal distance from the north and south poles. 0 degrees Latitude. |
| Erosion | The act of water moving and destroying rocks and the crust. This action destroys the crust. |
| Prime Meridian | 0 degrees longitude. |
| IDL | International Date Line. It is at the 180th Meridian. The sides have a difference in time of one day. |
| Salinity | The amount of salt in a kilogram of water. Measured in PPT or parts per thousand. |
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