Oceanography - the Seafloor Crossword Puzzle

QUESTIONS LIST:

• sonar : a system detecting objects under water by emitting sound pulses and measuring their return after reflection
• guyot : flat-topped underwater mountain formed when wave energy erodes the top of a sinking volcanic island
• bolide : piece of space debris that typically explodes upon impact with the atmosphere
• atoll : circular coral reef that forms a ring of islands around a central lagoon and that is bounded up on the outside by the deep water of the open sea
• terrigenous sediment : sand, silt, and clay eroded from the continents and deposited on the ocean floor mainly through submarine canyons extending out from the continental shelf
• transform fault : a strike-slip fault
• continental slope : the relatively steep region of the seafloor between the continental shelf and the continental rise
• abyssal plain : the flat, level, largely featureless parts of the ocean floor between the mid-ocean ridge and the continental rise
• continental rise : an apron of sediment at the foot of the continental slope that merges with the deep seafloor
• oceanic trench : a long, narrow, steep-sided depression of the seafloor formed where a subducting oceanic plate sinks into the mantle, causing the seafloor to bend downward
• seamount : a submarine mountain, usually of volcanic origin, that rises 1 km or more above the surrounding seafloor
• continental shelf : the shallow, very gently sloping portion of the seafloor that extends from the shoreline to approximately 200 meters water depth at the top of the continental slope
• magnetometer : instrument that measures the strength and, in some cases, the direction of a magnetic field