🌋 The Ocean Floor

What you’ll learn

1. A Hidden LandscapeUnderstand that the ocean floor is a varied landscape and identify its main features in cross-section.The ocean floor is the solid ground at the bottom of the sea, and it is far from flat. A slice through it reveals a shallow continental shelf near the coast, a vast flat abyssal plain, a towering mid-ocean ridge, and deep trenches. Much of this hidden landscape has never been mapped in detail.
2. Mountains and TrenchesCompare ocean floor features by depth, from the shallow shelf to the mid-ocean ridge and the Mariana Trench.Near the coast the continental shelf is shallow and full of life, while the mid-ocean ridge is the longest mountain range on Earth, where new sea floor forms. The deepest place, the Mariana Trench, plunges about 11 kilometres down, deeper than Mount Everest is high. The ocean floor holds some of the planet's most extreme depths.
3. Life on the FloorLearn how life survives on the deep ocean floor, at hydrothermal vents and on the abyssal plains.Even without sunlight, the deep ocean floor supports life. At hydrothermal vents, microbes make food from chemicals in the hot water, feeding tube worms, crabs, and shrimp. On the flat abyssal plains, creatures feed on bits of dead plants and animals that drift down from above like slow snow.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• NOAA
• National Geographic Kids
• Smithsonian Ocean
• Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
• Britannica Kids

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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