The ocean floor is composed of four main soil types: calcareous ooze, red clay, siliceous ooze, and bare rock. Calcareous ooze, made of shells and skeletons of tiny sea creatures, covers about 48% of the ocean floor. Red clay, containing minerals and micrometeorites, accounts for 38%. Siliceous ooze, made of plankton debris and silica shells, makes up the remaining 15%. Ocean temperatures vary greatly by region, from warm and clear waters near the equator to frozen seas in the polar north and south.
The ocean floor is composed of four main soil types: calcareous ooze, red clay, siliceous ooze, and bare rock. Calcareous ooze, made of shells and skeletons of tiny sea creatures, covers about 48% of the ocean floor. Red clay, containing minerals and micrometeorites, accounts for 38%. Siliceous ooze, made of plankton debris and silica shells, makes up the remaining 15%. Ocean temperatures vary greatly by region, from warm and clear waters near the equator to frozen seas in the polar north and south.
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The ocean floor is composed of four main soil types: calcareous ooze, red clay, siliceous ooze, and bare rock. Calcareous ooze, made of shells and skeletons of tiny sea creatures, covers about 48% of the ocean floor. Red clay, containing minerals and micrometeorites, accounts for 38%. Siliceous ooze, made of plankton debris and silica shells, makes up the remaining 15%. Ocean temperatures vary greatly by region, from warm and clear waters near the equator to frozen seas in the polar north and south.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
The Ocean Floor The ocean floor is made up of mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus, islands, ridges and volcanoes. The Earth's floor below the ocean is very similar the that above the ocean. Calcareous Ooze
Calcareous ooze is the most common of the
three soils and covers approximately 48 percent of the ocean floor. It is composed of the shells of foraminifera, coccolithophores and pteropods, which are tiny organisms living in the ocean. Red Clay
Red clay covers approximately 38 percent of
the ocean floor and is brown. It is made up of quartz, clay minerals and micrometeorites, which are rocks that weigh less than a gram and have fallen to Earth from outer space. Siliceous Ooze
Siliceous ooze is the least common of the three
soils, covering approximately 15 percent of the ocean floor. It is composed of plankton debris and silica shells. The Ocean Climate The average temperature of all oceans is about 39 degrees F (3.8 degrees C). But the oceans in different parts of the world can have very different climates! Tropical oceans, which are near the equator, are warm and clear on the surface. The equator is an imaginary belt which circles the earth and divides it into two halves. The areas of land and water which are near this belt are called the tropics, and are always warm.
But in the cold polar regions of the far north
and far south, the ocean is so cold that its'
surface is frozen! Huge blocks of ice called ICEBERGS drift in these seas.
The sun's heat warms only the surface
of the water. Deep down, oceans everywhere are cold, dark, and still.