-nearly 75% of surface is water

-global ocean contains 97% of water on earth

-most prominent, but only 1/800 of earth's volume and 1/4,000 of earth's mass

-Arctic Ocean

-Southern Ocean

-Pacific Ocean

-Indian Ocean

-Atlantic Ocean

-study of physical, geological characteristics, chemical composition, life forms in the ocean called oceanography

-naval officer named Matthew F. Maury used records from navy ships to learn about ocean currents, winds, depths, and weather conditions

-published observations in 1855

-from 1872-1876 scientists on the HMS challenger crossed atlantic, indian, and pacific oceans

-laid foundation for rest of oceanography

-re-entry cones used so that samples can be taken from same part of the ocean floor

-uses acoustic signals and returned echoes to determine the location of objects or to communicate

-stands for SOund Navigation And Ranging

(SONAR)

-underwater research vessels

-bathysphere:stays with ship for communications and power

-bathyscaph: free-moving, wireless communication and power within it

-submarine robots: take photographs, provide samples, and can explore depths for longperiods of time

-continental margins: shallow parts of ocean made of continental crust and thick wedge of sediment

-deep-ocean basin: oceanic crust and thin sediment layer

-at seaward edge of continental shelf is a steeper slope called the continental slope

-submarine valleys cut through the continental shelp anf continental slope

-turbidity currents from continental slopes

-sediments form wedge at base of the continental slope called a continental rise

-broad flat plains (abyssal plains), 

-submerged volcanoes, trenches, mid-ocean ridges, sea-mounts

-three factors to sediment thickness: age, distance from continental margin, the distance from trenches.

-mid-ocean ridges are underwater mountain ranges

-seamounts are mountains taller than 1 kilometer, atolls are intermediate step in seamount process

-continental shelves and slopes covered with sediments

-carried into by rivers, wave erosion or when animals die and go the the sea floor

-core samples are cylinders of sediment that are collected by drilling into sediment layers on the ocean floor

-materials may come from organic or inorganic sources

-rock particles carried by land by rivers

-powerful turbidity currents can form

-can include volcanic dust

-meteorite dust mostly falls on ocean floor and can be sediment there

-biogenic sediments: produced by living organisms

-made of silica and calcium carbonate

-chemical deposits: when subtances are dissolved in ocean water crystallize, they form potato-shaped lumps called nodules

-commonly on abyssal planes

-two basic types: mud and very fine silt and clay sized particles of rock

-red clay is made of at least 40% clay particles, mixed with silt, sand and biogenic material

-ooze is either calcareous (mostly made of calcium carbonate, never found below 5km under sea level) and siliceous (mostly of silicon dioxide and found at any depth, mostly found in Antarctica's ocean water)