Sketch The Topographic Profile Of The Atlantic Ocean Floor Between South America And Africa

The data table shows a record of the depth of the atlantic ocean measured by a research vessel travelling on course due east along 39on latitude.

Sketch the topographic profile of the atlantic ocean floor between south america and africa. Atlantic ocean topographic map. If the earth s lowest spots aren t in the middle of the ocean where are they. In the space below. The seabed depth varies from shallow light blue on the continental shelves to deep ocean basins dark blue.

The uss stewart used a navy sonic depth finder to draw a continuous map across the bed of the atlantic. This involved little guesswork because the idea of sonar is straight forward with pulses being sent from the vessel which bounce off the ocean floor then return to the vessel. This map is centred on the atlantic with north and south america at left and africa at right. In 1922 a historic moment in cartography and oceanography occurred.

This image of south america was generated with data from the shuttle radar topography mission srtm. Zoom in enough to see that although the ridge is a topographic high it also has a valley the rift valley running along the middle of it. South america africa atlantic ocean 9. For this broad view the resolution of the data was first reduced to 30 arcseconds about 928 meters north south but variable east west matching the best previously existing global digital topographic data set called gtopo30.

The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. The data were then resampled to a mercator projection with. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet.

Suppose you took a trip across the atlantic ocean and were able to check the depth of the water under your boat at regular intervals. Scan around to see the ocean ridges in the indian pacific and southern oceans. Take a digital photograph of your sketch to include in your lab report. In the space below complete the topographic profile of the atlantic ocean floor between south america and africa.

Be careful when interpreting this diagram and others like it because in order to show the various features clearly the vertical axis is exaggerated in this case by about 200 times. Complete the topographic profile of the atlantic ocean floor between south america and a frica. A topographic profile of the pacific ocean floor between japan and british columbia is shown in figure 18 3. They also discovered an 800 kilometer long now extinct i e no longer actively spreading ridge in the south atlantic ocean that formed after africa and north america rifted apart.