OCEAN BASINS:THE

STRUCTURE AND
EVOLUTION
By Erich Joy Ravino
Ocean Basins
• are a consequence of plate motion

• subducting slabs pull on their plates, leading to spreading at

divergent plate boundaries

• are partially bounded by continents

• interconnected - "world ocean"

Major Ocean Basins
• Major Ocean Basins

• Pacific basin

• Atlantic basin

• Indian basin

• Arctic basin

• Southern basin
The Structure of Ocean Basins
The continental margins of major features of the ocean floor
are:
• Continental Shelf (less than
• 150 meters of water depth)
• Continental Slope (depth up to 1200 meters)
• Continental Rise at the base of the continental slope)
Types of Margin
Passive

Passive (hundreds of kilometer wide)

Inactive surface is slow to change and does
little more than collect sediment.

Active

Active (less than 1 kilometer

wide)
Active ocean basins have a lot of new structures being
created and shaped.
The Structure of Ocean

Mid-oceanic Ridge
• above the ocean floor at the center of the oceans basins

• 23% of the earth's surface long linear mountain chain in all oceans
and bound basins

• Fracture zones are perpendicular to ridges

The Structure of Ocean

Deep Ocean Basins

• greater than 4000m in water depth, typically flat or subdued
topography
• regularly cut by long fracture zones
The Structure of Ocean
Basins
Ocean Trenches
mark the transition between continents
ocean basins

Ocean Rises

Seamounts: guyots, atolls, all forms of submarine volcanoes,

submarine plateaus
How did Ocean

Basins evolve?
 • Embryonic 4.Declining

STAGES OF OCEAN
BASINS
2. Juvenile
EVOLUTION 5.Terminal

(WILSON CYLE)

6. Relict Scar
3. Mature
Embryonic
• Continental rifting plays a key role in the formation
of an ocean.

• New basin will become part of the eventual

continental shelf-slope-rise zone.
Juvenile
• Seafloor basalts begin forming

• Fairly shallow

• Normal marine sedimentation of muds, sands and

limestones, depending on local conditions
Mature
• Broad as it widens

• Fairly shallow

• Trenches develop and subduction begins

• Abyssal plains form

• Fully-developed shelf-slope-rise zone

Declining
• Subduction eliminates much of sea floor and
oceanic ridge.

• Dominant motions are spreading and shrinking

Terminal
• African Plate is being consumed under the
European Plate.
Relict Scar
• Shrinking and uplifting of young mountains
OCEAN BASINS MAKE UP
MORE THAN 70% OF THE
TOTAL LAND ON EARTH.
THANK YOU!
Earth Science
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