Is The Entire Ocean Floor Is Covered By Sediments

The individual nodules lie loosely on the sea floor but can sometimes be covered by a thin sediment layer.

Is the entire ocean floor is covered by sediments.

The sediments that accumulate there come from a variety of sources. Most parts of the sea floor are covered in sediments and the sediments are formed by several different sources and are highly variable in their composition. Organisms living in this zone are called benthos and include microorganisms e g bacteria and fungi as well as larger invertebrates such as crustaceans and polychaetes. The ocean floor is a sort of ultimate collection pan for the entire globe.

The material can be different and it depends on the proximity of that sea floor to a certain continent depth of the water the currents of the ocean biological activity and climate. Occurrences of economic interest are concentrated particularly in the pacific and indian oceans in the wide deep sea basins at depths of 3500 to 6500 metres. Known as manganese nodules they are composed of layers of different metals like manganese iron nickel cobalt and copper and they are always found on the surface of the ocean floor. The ocean basin floor is everywhere covered by sediments of different types and origins.

Sediment thickness in the oceans averages about 450 metres 1 500 feet. Small rock particles and precipitated chemicals derived from the continents especially by streams form the bulk of this sediment. An is the vast relatively deep flat sediment covered portion of the deep ocean basin. Almost the entire ocean floor is covered with different types of sediment.

The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean lake or stream including the sediment surface and some sub surface layers. The floor of the ocean is blanketed by a layer of poorly consolidated material called sediment. The features of the ocean floor are covered by a layer of sediments the thickness of which depends on the age of the feature the local topography and on the abundance of the sediment sup ply. Cosmogenous sediments are the remains of space debris such as comets and asteroids made up of silicates and various metals that have impacted the earth.

The only exception are the crests of the spreading centres where new ocean floor has not existed long enough to accumulate a sediment cover. Abyssal plain a marks the site where old oceanic lithosphere begins its descent into a subduction zone.