1.1. Relief of the Ocean Floor

Ocean Floor refers to the land under the waters of the oceans. The ocean floor exhibits complex and varied features similar to those observed over the land. The floors of the oceans are rugged with the world’s largest mountain ranges, deepest trenches and the largest plains. These features are formed, like those of the continents, by the factors of tectonic, volcanic and depositional processes.

The ocean floors can be divided into following four major divisions:

1.1.1. Continental Shelf 1.1.2. Continental Slope 1.1.3. Continental Rise 1.1.4. Deep Sea Plain 1.1.5. Oceanic deeps or Trenches Figure 1. Major relief features of the ocean floor.Figure 2. Minor Relief features of the ocean floor.