Exam 15: Ocean Basins

Oceans are commonly warmer than adjacent land in the winter and cooler in the summer.

A submarine mountain that rises 1 kilometer or more above the surrounding seafloor but does not rise above sea level is called a(n) _______________.

Erupting lava on the seafloor quickly cools in contact with seawater, forming bulbous spheroids called ____.

Piston coring devices use the inertia of a falling, weighted core barrel to penetrate into seafloor sediment and retrieve a core sample.

The age of the oldest ocean floor is about ____ million years.

Rift valleys can be found at ____ plate boundaries.

During the formation of the solar system, the solar wind pulled volatile compounds toward the inner planets.

Where do active continental margins form?

Most of the water that fills Earth's oceans came from ____.

Thick, extensive accumulations of limestone on the seafloor are called ____.

Silt- and clay-sized particles transported by wind as dust derived from continental weathering and the remains of tiny plankton make up _______________ sediment.

The Hawaiian Islands have formed as the Pacific plate passes over a(n) _______________ that fuels each of the volcanoes.

Compare and contrast passive continental margins and active continental margins.

What are the four spheres on Earth?

Describe the age of the Earth and the age of the seafloor.

An echo sounder determines water depth by measuring the time it takes a sound signal to bounce off the seafloor and travel back to the instrument.

How much displacement does a transform fault display?

How do atolls form?

If a series of island arcs collide with a continent over a long period of time, they add to a continent as ____.

What led to the discovery of mid-ocean ridges?