Deep Sea

Summary

The deep sea environment is comprised of the entire ocean floor below the continental slope, making it the largest depositional environment both in this portfolio and the world. Sediments found here are both siliceous and calcareous and are typically silt-sized or smaller, with some rare exceptions (Malhame et al., 2011). Deep sea sediment deposits form primarily by the slow accumulation of suspended particles across the sea-floor (Omura et al., 2012). The study of deep sea sedimentology has been growing in prevalence since the 1960s, primarily due to its implications on petroleum exploration. In the near future the study of deep sea sediments will likely expand its focus onto the possibility of mining precious metals from the sea-floor (Boulesteix et al., 2019).  The deep sea environment is considered to have 2 primary components, the deep ocean floor and the continental rise (Boggs, 2014).  The deep ocean floor is comprised of Abyssal plains, seamount, and ridges. The continental rise is a gradually sloping surface the connect the continental shelf to the deep ocean basin. Continental rises rarely appear along convergent plate boundaries, causing the formation of deep-sea trenches in their absence (Boggs, 2014).