14.1 Exploring the Ocean
Objectives
Name________________________
•Describe the exploration of the ocean and its floor and identify factors that make oceanfloor research difficult.
•Describe features of the ocean floor and the processes that have shaped it.
Introduction
•HMS Challenger, ___________ ship, voyage in _____________.
•Gathered about ____ volumes and ___________ organisms.
•Took _____ years to publish the __________________.
Voyages of Discovery
•Phoenicians lived along the _____________________ Sea.
•By 1200 B.C., they established sea _____________ for ___________ with other
nations.
•In the Pacific Ocean, the Polynesians studied the winds and _____________which
enabled the Polynesians to settle Hawaii, Tahiti and New Zealand.
•Polynesian sailors used stick charts to navigate the Pacific Ocean.
•The curved sticks represent currents and __________________.
•The pieces of coral might represent rocks or ____________ _________________.
•In the late 1700’s, Captain James _______________ lead _________ voyage for
exploration.
•He and his crew studied the ___________, and collected new species of plants and
animals.
•Within a century, almost all of Earth’s coastlines have been __________________.
Exploring the Ocean Floor
•Governments and _______________ have sponsored many ocean research explorations.
•Until recently, the ocean floor was unexplored.
•Why did it take so long to reach this part of the ocean?
•Studying the ocean floor is difficult because of three things.
1. _____________
2 _____________
3. __________ _______________
The ocean floor can be more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.
•Methods used
–String with the weight used by the Challenger. This method was _____________ and
often _____________________.
This produced the first rough maps of the floor of the North Atlantic.
–Sonar,
invented during WWI to detect ______________________-.
–Sonar
stands for ________________________________________________________.
–Explain how sonar works. _________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
Features of the Ocean Floor
•Continental shelf - _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
•Continental slope - at a depth of about __________ meters, the ocean floor begins to
slope more ___________. This marks the true edge of a ______________, where the
rock that makes up the continent ____________ and the rock of the ocean floor begins.
•Seamounts are _________________________________________________________.
•Abyssal plain - broad, smooth, and flat area covered with the thick layers of mud and
____________.
•Mid-ocean ridge - ________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
The mid-ocean ridge is the ________________ mountain _________________ on earth.
•Trench - _______________________________________________________________.