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The depth of the seafloor on the flanks of a mid-ocean ridge is determined mainly by the age of the oceanic lithosphere; older seafloor is deeper. During seafloor spreading, lithosphere and mantle cooling, contraction, and isostatic adjustment with age cause seafloor deepening. This relationship has come to be better understood since around ...
At the spreading center on a mid-ocean ridge, the depth of the seafloor is approximately 2,600 meters (8,500 ft). [2] [3] On the ridge flanks, the depth of the seafloor (or the height of a location on a mid-ocean ridge above a base-level) is correlated with its age (age of the lithosphere where depth is measured).
The depth predicted by the square root of seafloor age derived above is too deep for seafloor older than 80 million years. [27] Depth is better explained by a cooling lithosphere plate model rather than the cooling mantle half-space. [27] The plate has a constant temperature at its base and spreading edge.
Plate tectonics and the volume of mid-ocean ridges: the depth of the seafloor increases with distance to a ridge, as the oceanic lithosphere cools and thickens. The volume of ocean basins can be modeled using reconstructions of plate tectonics and using an age-depth relationship (see also Seafloor depth vs age).
When the age of the ocean crust as determined by magnetic anomalies or drill hole samples was compared to the ocean depth it was observed that depth and age are directly related in a seafloor depth age relationship. [25] This relationship was explained by the cooling and contracting of an oceanic plate as it spreads away from a ridge crest. [26]
The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of the ocean is very deep, where the seabed is known as the abyssal plain. Seafloor spreading creates ...
A deep-sea expedition made the surprising discovery of a previously unknown ecosystem in which animals such as giant tube worms thrive beneath hydrothermal vents.
During the most recent ice age (at its maximum about 20,000 years ago) the world's sea level was about 130 m lower than today, due to the large amount of sea water that had evaporated and been deposited as snow and ice, mostly in the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Most of this had melted by about 10,000 years ago.