Starting from land, a trip across an ocean basin along the seafloor would begin with crossing the continental shelf. The continental shelf is an area of relatively shallow wat… See more

Continuing your journey across the ocean basin, you would descend the steep continental slope to … See more

Rising up from the abyssal plain, you would encounter the mid-ocean ridge, an underwater mountain range, over 40,000 miles long, rising to an average depth of 8,000 feet. … See more

After scaling the mid-ocean ridge and traversing hundreds to thousands of miles of abyssal plains, you might encounter an ocean trench. The Mariana Trench, for example, i… See more