Plates, Ridges, and Trenches, Oh My!
The youngest oceanic crust is found here, while the oldest is found near subduction zones.
What are mid-ocean ridges?
This is the layer of the ocean that interacts directly with the atmosphere and is mixed by wind and waves.
What is the surface mixed layer?
This process describes ocean circulation driven by differences in temperature and salinity rather than by wind.
What is thermohaline circulation?
This is the distance over which wind blows uninterrupted across a body of water.
What is fetch?
This scientist’s seafloor maps provided the first comprehensive evidence of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and continental drift.
Who is Marie Tharp?
Oceanic crust rarely exceeds 200 million years in age because of this destructive tectonic process.
What is subduction at convergent boundaries?
On a T–S diagram, lines of constant density are called this.
What are isopycnals?
The Coriolis-driven surface flow that results in Ekman transport moves water at roughly this angle to the wind direction.
What is 90°?
When waves enter shallow water and their height increases while speed and wavelength decrease, this process is occurring.
What is shoaling?
In Charles Darwin’s reef formation theory, this type of reef develops after a volcanic island has completely subsided.
What is an atoll?
This mafic igneous rock is the primary component of new oceanic crust at spreading centers.
What is basalt?
Chlorophyll concentrations are highest in regions of this oceanographic process that brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface.
What is upwelling?
The approximate time it takes for a parcel of water to complete one full circuit of the global thermohaline circulation is about this long.
What is 1,000 years (roughly 800–1,200 years)?
A deep-water wave has a wavelength of 64m and a period of 8s. What is its speed?
What is 8 m/s?
Rapid melting of Greenland’s ice adds freshwater to the North Atlantic, potentially weakening this major circulation system.
What is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)?
Sediment accumulation at the base of the continental slope forms this broad depositional feature.
What is the continental rise?
As global ocean temperatures rise, the solubility of oxygen in seawater does this.
What is decreases?
In the Atlantic, this dense water mass forms near Greenland when cold temperatures and brine rejection cause high-salinity water to sink.
What is North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW)?
This process occurs when waves bend around headlands or obstacles, redistributing energy along coastlines.
What is refraction?
In this type of estuary, moderate river flow and tidal mixing create a gradual vertical salinity gradient, with some mixing between layers.
What is a partially mixed estuary?
The graded bedding formed by underwater avalanches of sediment is known as this.
What are turbidites?
The ocean’s vertical density structure is divided into these three layers.
What are the surface layer, pycnocline, and deep layer?
In a schematic diagram of the global conveyor belt, the deep limb flows primarily in this direction in the Atlantic basin before upwelling in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
What is southward?
This phenomenon explains the extremely high tidal range in places like the Bay of Fundy.
What is tidal resonance?
This type of oceanic sediment originates from volcanic ash, dust, and rock fragments eroded from land.
What are terrigenous sediments?