The Floors of the Ocean: 1. The North Atlantic: Text to accompany the physiographic diagram of the North Atlantic — John Shaqi
The Floors of the Ocean: 1. The North Atlantic: Text to accompany the physiographic diagram of the North AtlanticHeezen, Bruce C.
Science
The Floors of the Ocean: 1. The North Atlantic: Text to accompany the physiographic diagram of the North Atlantic
Heezen, Bruce C.
Ocean bottom
MARGINAL ESCARPMENTS: A marginal escarpment is a precipitous escarpment
which forms the seaward slope of a marginal plateau. Such escarpments
begin in depths of 500-1500 fathoms and are 1000 to 2000 fathoms high.
The base of the escarpment is well marked by an abrupt change in slope.
Gradients of marginal escarpments exceed 1:10. The Blake Escarpment is
a marginal escarpment. Similar features are found in the Gulf of Mexico
and off the southeast coast of Argentina.
LANDWARD SLOPES OF TRENCHES: This term was introduced to set apart the
landward slopes of marginal trenches from the usual continental slopes
found off trench-less coasts. These steep slopes (> 1:40) drop from
depths of a few hundred fathoms near a continent to a depth of a few
thousand fathoms in a marginal trench. In the North Atlantic the one
example is north of Puerto Rico. A large part of the circumference of
the Pacific is bounded by such features.
* * * * *
_Category III provinces._--At the base of the continental slope a
gentle gradient continues to the local level of the abyssal floor. This
seaward gradient ranges from 1:100 to 1:700 and extends over a strip
from a few miles to a few hundred miles in width. On many topographic
profiles made at right angles to the slope of the continental margin
three major breaks are visible: the shelf break, the base of the
continental slope, and the point where the near-by level of the
ocean-basin floor intersects the more steeply sloping continental
margin. Since we have limited the continental slope to gradients
greater than 1:40, we split off this lower portion of the continental
margin into a separate province, the continental rise. In the older
"bathymetric" classification of relief the ocean basin--continental
slope boundary was along the 2000- or 2500-fathom contour, an arbitrary
division which cut across the then-unrecognized continental rise. At
the base of the Blake Escarpment lies an enclosed basin, and north
of Puerto Rico the sea floor drops almost directly to the floor of a
marginal trench. These seemingly diverse provinces of continental rise,
marginal escarpments, enclosed marginal basins, marginal trenches, and
outer ridges are placed in category III because of their similarity in
position with respect to the continents and ocean floor and because of
other similarities shown in the deeper structure of the continental
rise.
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