chapter 13 section a Flashcards
The _________ are vast bodies of salt water that desperate the continents. They cover about 71% of the earth’s surface and hold over 97% of all the water on the planet.
oceans
_________ are marine scientists and engineers from almost every field who work to better understand and use the oceans.
oceanographers
_________ _________ investigate the plant and animal life in every ocean environment.
Marine biologists
___________ study the influence of the oceans on weather and climate.
meteorologists
___________ analyze the distribution of various elements and compounds in the oceans and the ways those chemicals affect ocean processes.
Chemists
____________ model the distribution of energy in the oceans and the motion of its great currents.
Physicists
____________ ____________ develop methods and vehicles to investigate and use the oceans.
marine engineers
means suitable for drinking
potable
a large section of ocean mostly surrounded by land or islands is called a ________.
sea
__________ are the largest bodies of water, separating the continents.
__________ are small-to-large bodies of sea-water, usually partly or completely surrounded by land.
__________ are similar to seas, but they are usually smaller.
__________ are generally smaller than gulfs.
__________ are narrow ocean passages separating bodies of land.
oceans, seas, gulfs, bays, straits
________ _______ _______ is the height of the ocean’s surface at a given point on the earth’s surface. It changes mainly with the tides, but passing weather systems and storm waves affect it too. Or, an always-changing height of the ocean surface at a given location.
Local sea level
Oceanographers measure local sea level with ______ ______ mounted along shorelines, or from satellites far above the ocean using radar.
tide gauges
Mean (or average) ______ ______—what most people call “______ ______”—is the computed average height of high and low tides at a location. Mean ______ ______ (MSL) is the zero height that cartographers and aircraft pilots use to measure elevation.
sea level
Scientists estimate that MSL has risen at an average
rate of ____ mm per year over the past 100 years, so this recent
change suggests that something new must be affecting MSL.
1.8
Water ________ as it gets warmer, so that would make the sea level ________.
expands, higher
A ________ is a strip of land that separates the coastal region from the ocean.
shore
The __________ is an ever-changing place that extends underwater beyond the shore. 🫧
beach
The ________ is the area where only the highest tides or storm waves can reach. It is usually soft, coarse sand, or large cobbles left by the largest storm waves.
berm
The zone between the high- and low-tide shorelines is the ________ ________. It may be wet, compact sand or fine pebbles.
beach face
Beyond the beach zone, the bottom slopes out gently from the continent, forming a __________ __________. They are the submerged edges of continental plates.
continental shelf
The __________ __________’s upper edge is the beginning of the deep ocean basin.
continental slope
Young-earth oceanographerz believe __________ __________ were carved by currents of water full of sediment flowing off the continents late in the Flood.
submarine canyons
A _________ __________ is a smooth transition from the continental slope to the deep, relatively flat ocean floor.
continental rise
The relatively flat, deep sea floor is the _________ _________.
abyssal plain
The relatively flat, deep sea floor is the _________ _________.
abyssal plain
Oceanographers
study the makeup and history of the sediments by removing
long cylindrical samples called __________ __________.
sediment cores
Every ocean basin has one or more __________ __________. As you learned earlier, these are submerged mountain ranges at the margins of diverging tec- tonic plates. They formed when the mantle pushed up on long, faulted sections of sea-floor crust that line both sides of the plate margins.
mid-ocean ridges
__________ __________ usually have a relatively steep slope on the side towards the continental plates and a gentle slope on the seawrd side.
oceaning trenches
long, curved strings of volcanic islands formed by submarine volcanoes breaking the ocean surface
island arcs
_______ _______ are important marine geologic features that form from the activities of animals. _______ are tiny animals that usually live in warm ocean waters. They live in groups called colonies.
coral reefs, coral
Coral reefs that grow right up to the beach along a coastline are _________ _________.
fringing reefs
_________ reefs are farther from the land. They form a lagoon between the reef and the land.
Barrier
An _______ is a ring of low coral islands and reefs surrounding a central lagoon. Geologists believe that most of these began as barrier or fringing reefs around volcanic islands.
atoll
