What Can You Find On The Ocean Floor

Hydrothermal vents cold seeps and whale falls.

What can you find on the ocean floor.

The ocean floor is a mysterious place that marine geologists and oceanographers have struggled to fully grasp. Fish octopuses squid eels dolphins and whales swim the open waters while crabs octopuses starfish oysters and snails crawl and scoot along the ocean bottom. A history of ocean floor mapping and dating. Life on the ocean floor is very sparse making it similar to a vast desert.

Closer to shore you ll find coral forests on the ocean floor that are home to a myriad of sea creatures from little clownfish to sea urchins. Known as manganese nodules they are composed of layers of different metals like manganese iron nickel cobalt and copper and they are always found on the surface of the ocean floor. The lack of weathering and erosion in most areas however allows geological processes to be seen more clearly on the seafloor than. Coral may live on the ocean floor.

You may have heard this fact before and while true there is a logical explanation as to why. Ravines can occasionally generate on the ocean floor forming underwater trenches. The remains of at least a dozen lost cities rest eerily at the bottom of the ocean near places like greece japan. Mountains plains channels canyons exposed rocks and sediment covered areas.

Many of these newly discovered species live deep on the ocean floor in unique habitats that depend on plate movement underwater volcanoes and cold water seeps. These islands are typically small beachessurrounding a patch of a common biome such as forestor plains. New species are discovered in the ocean each year by marine biologists and other ocean scientists. Some seafloor peaks may reach high enough to form islands on the surface of the ocean.

There are several oases on the ocean floor. Marine organisms prefer shallow waters where energy from photosynthesis is abundant providing the foundation of the food chain. In other parts of the ocean floor you ll find king. The ocean floor has the same general character as the land areas of the world.

Deep ocean hydrothermal vent ecosystems were discovered in 1977 broadening our understanding of life on earth. Life in the ocean depends on. Cosmogenous sediments are the remains of space debris such as comets and asteroids made up of silicates and various metals that have impacted the earth. In fact scientists have mapped more of the surface of the moon mars and venus than the surface of our ocean.