What are Some Features of the Ocean Floor?
Most of the ocean floor is an extremely dark and boring place. In more precise terms, the ocean floor off the continental shelf is known as the abyssal plain. The abyssal plain has a depth between 2,200 and 5,500 m (7,200 and 18,000 ft) and covers about 40% of the ocean floor. These areas are among the flattest and least explored on the Earth’s surface. Less than one tenth of 1% of the abyssal plain has been explored by man, primarily using deep submarine robots. The ocean floor is flat because of sediments constantly building up there at an even rate. These sediments fall into three types: siliceous oozes (from silica shells), calcareous oozes (from calcite shells), and red clays (from windblown sand and micrometeorites). The sediments accumulate very slowly, just a few centimeters per millennium. Life on the ocean floor is very sparse, making it similar to a vast desert. Marine organisms prefer shallow waters, where energy from photosynthesis is abundant, providing the foundation of
