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Oceanic crust is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at trenches. Oceanic trenches are prominent, long, narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) below the level of the surrounding oceanic ...
In the ocean, the aphotic zone is sometimes referred to as the dark ocean. Depending on how it is defined, the aphotic zone of the ocean begins between depths of about 200 m (660 ft) to 800 m (2,600 ft) and extends to the ocean floor .
An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3,000 and 6,000 metres (9,800 and 19,700 ft).Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth's surface.
The deep trenches or fissures that plunge down thousands of meters below the ocean floor (for example, the mid-oceanic trenches such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific) are almost unexplored. [6] Previously, only the bathyscaphe Trieste, the remote control submarine Kaikō and the Nereus have been able to descend to these depths.
Very little is known about the microbial community of the mesopelagic zone because it is a difficult part of the ocean to study. Recent work using DNA from seawater samples emphasized the importance of viruses and microbes role in recycling organic matter from the surface ocean, known as the microbial loop .
The hadal zone, also known as the hadopelagic zone, is the deepest region of the ocean, lying within oceanic trenches.The hadal zone ranges from around 6 to 11 km (3.7 to 6.8 mi; 20,000 to 36,000 ft) below sea level, and exists in long, narrow, topographic V-shaped depressions.
“The Southern Ocean is very stormy in general (but) in the Drake you’re really squeezing (the water) between the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere,” he adds. “That intensifies the ...
The Mariana Trench is the deepest known submarine trench, and the deepest location in the Earth's crust itself. [38] It is a subduction zone where the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the Mariana Plate. [3] At the deepest point, the trench is nearly 11,000 m deep (almost 36,000 feet).