Where is the continental shelf?
Offshore from continental landmasses, a “shelf” around the continent. The Earth is made of land and sea tectonic plates. Land plates are less dense and float higher than the sea plates. Erosion around the edges of land plates causes shallow seas so some of the land plate is under water, when you reach the edge of the land plate, it drops off quite steeply to the depths of the sea-plate. This drop-off is called the continental shelf. Continental shelves have shallow seas and so respond more quickly to weather changes, they are also usually much more biologically productive than the deep sea abyssal-plains.
