Marine landforms

Shallow water marine environment

Deep water marine environment

Reef

1. Continental shelf
2. Continental slope
3. Rise
4. Abyssal palne

The continental shelf is an underwater landmass which extends from a continent, resulting in an
area of relatively shallow water known as a shelf sea. Much of the shelves were exposed during
glacial periods and interglacial periods.
The shelf surrounding an island is known as an insular shelf.
The continental margin, between the continental shelf and the abyssal plain, comprises a steep
continental slope followed by the flatter continental rise. Sediment from the continent above
cascades down the slope and accumulates as a pile of sediment at the base of the slope, called the
continental rise. Extending as far as 500 km (310 mi) from the slope, it consists of thick
sediments deposited by turbidity currents from the shelf and slope. The continental rise's gradient
is intermediate between the slope and the shelf, on the order of 0.51.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the name continental shelf was
given a legal definition as the stretch of the seabed adjacent to the shores of a particular country
to which it belongs
The shelf usually ends at a point of increasing slope(called the shelf break). The sea floor below
the break is the continental slope. Below the slope is the continental rise, which finally merges
into the deep ocean floor, the abyssal plain. The continental shelf and the slope are part of the
continental margin.
The shelf area is commonly subdivided into the inner continental shelf, mid continental shelf,
and outer continental shelf, each with their specific geomorphology and marine biology.
The character of the shelf changes dramatically at the shelf break, where the continental slope
begins. With a few exceptions, the shelf break is located at a remarkably uniform depth of
roughly 140 m (460 ft); this is likely a hallmark of past ice ages, when sea level was lower than it
is now.
The continental slope is much steeper than the shelf; the average angle is 3, but it can be as low
as 1 or as high as 10.The slope is often cut with submarine canyons.

Sediments

The continental shelves are covered by terrigenous sediments; that is, those derived from erosion
of the continents. However, little of the sediment is from current rivers; some 60-70% of the
sediment on the world's shelves is relict sediment, deposited during the last ice age, when sea
level was 100120 m lower than it is now.

Sediments usually become increasingly fine with distance from the coast; sand is limited to
shallow, wave-agitated waters, while silt and clays are deposited in quieter, deep water far
offshore. These shelf sediments accumulate at an average rate of 30 cm/1000 years, with a range
from 1540 cm. Though slow by human standards, this rate is much faster than that for deep-sea
pelagic sediments
Continental shelves teem with life, because of the sunlight available in shallow waters, in
contrast to the biotic desert of the oceans' abyssal plain. The pelagic (water column) environment
of the continental shelf constitutes the neritic zone, and the benthic (sea floor) province of the
shelf is the sublittoral zone.
Though the shelves are usually fertile, if anoxic conditions prevail during sedimentation, the
deposits may over geologic time become sources for fossil fuels.
About 8.5 percent of the ocean floor is covered by the continental slope-rise system.
This system is an expression of the edge of the continental crustal block. Beyond
the shelf-slope break, the continental crust thins quickly, and the rise lies partly on
the continental crust and partly on the oceanic crust of the deep sea. Although the
continental slope averages about 4, it can approach vertical on carbonate margins,
on faulted margins, or on leading-edge, tectonically active margins. Steep slopes
usually have either a very poorly developed continental rise or none at all and are
called escarpments.
The predominant sediments of continental slopes are muds; there are smaller
amounts of sediments of sand or gravel. Over geologic time, the continental slopes
are temporary depositional sites for sediments. During lowstands of sea level, rivers
may dump their sedimentary burden directly on them. Sediments build up until the
mass becomes unstable and sloughs off to the lower slope and the continental rise.
During highstands of sea level, these processes slow down as the coastline retreats
landward across the continental shelf, and more of the sediments delivered to the
coast are trapped in estuaries and lagoons.

Shallow water marine environment

It

refer to the area between the shore and the beginning of the reef wall. This
environment is host to many organisms that leave their trace in the form of ooids,
trace fossils, bore holes and many other ways.
Fossils
The vast majority of the fossil record has been found after the shallow water marine
environment has been lithified. Many of these fossils were deposited at times when
much of Earth was covered with shallow seas, supporting a wide variety of
organisms and other living creatures.
Sediment
The sediment itself is often composed of limestone, which forms readily in shallow,
warm calm waters. The shallow marine environments are not exclusively composed
of siliciclastic or carbonaceous sediments. While they cannot always coexist, it is
possible to have a shallow marine environment composed solely of carbonaceous
sediment or one that is composed completely of siliciclastic sediment. Shallow
water marine sediment is made up of smaller grain sizes, because these smaller
grains have been washed out of higher energy areas.

A reef

is a bar of rock, sand, coral or similar material, lying beneath the

surface of water. Reefs may be up to 261 feet (80 m) below the surface.Many
reefs result from abiotic processesdeposition of sand, wave erosion planing
down rock outcrops, and other natural processesbut the best-known reefs
are the coral reefs of tropical waters developed through biotic processes
dominated by corals and calcareous algae. Artificial reefs such as shipwrecks
are sometimes created to enhance physical complexity on generally
featureless sand bottoms in order to attract a diverse assemblage of
organisms, especially fish.

Biotic reef
There is a variety of biotic reef types, including oyster reefs, but the most massive and widely
distributed are tropical coral reefs. Although corals are major contributors to the framework and
bulk material comprising a coral reef, the organisms most responsible for reef growth against the
constant assault from ocean waves are calcareous algae, especially, although not entirely, species
of coralline algae.
These biotic reef types take on additional names depending upon how the reef lies in relation to
the land, if any. Reef types include fringing reef, barrier reefs, as well as atolls. A fringing reef is
a reef that is attached to an island. A barrier reef forms a calcareous barrier around an island
resulting in a lagoon between the shore and the reef. An atoll is a ring reef with no land present.
The reef front (ocean side) is a high energy locale whereas the internal lagoon will be at a lower
energy with fine grained sediments.

Geologic reef
One useful definition distinguishes reefs from mounds as follows. Both are considered to be
varieties of organosedimentary buildups: sedimentary features, built by the interaction of
organisms and their environment, that have synoptic relief and whose biotic composition differs
from that found on and beneath the surrounding sea floor. Reefs are held up by a macroscopic

skeletal framework. Coral reefs are an excellent example of this kind. Corals and calcareous
algae grow on top of one another and form a three-dimensional framework that is modified in
various ways by other organisms and inorganic processes. By contrast, mounds lack a
macroscopic skeletal framework. Mounds are built by microorganisms or by organisms that don't
grow a skeletal framework. A microbial mound might be built exclusively or primarily by
cyanobacteria. Excellent examples of biostromes formed by cyanobacteria occur in the Great
Salt Lake of Utah (USA), and in Shark Bay, Western Australia.
Cyanobacteria do not have skeletons and individuals are microscopic. Cyanobacteria encourage
the precipitation or accumulation of calcium carbonate and can produce distinct sediment bodies
in composition that have relief on the seafloor. Cyanobacterial mounds were most abundant
before the evolution of shelly macroscopic organisms, but they still exist today (stromatolites are
microbial mounds with a laminated internal structure). Bryozoans and crinoids, common
contributors to marine sediments during the Mississippian (for example), produced a very
different kind of mound. Bryozoans are small and the skeletons of crinoids disintegrate.
However, bryozoan and crinoid meadows can persist over time and produce compositionally
distinct bodies of sediment with depositional relief.
The Proterozoic Belt Supergroup contains evidence of possible microbial mat and dome
structures similar to stromatolite reef complexes

Geologic reef structures

Reefs off Vanatinai in the Louisiade Archipelago.

Ancient reefs buried within stratigraphic sections are of considerable interest to geologists
because they provide paleo-environmental information about the location in Earth's history. In
addition, reef structures within a sequence of sedimentary rocks provide a discontinuity which
may serve as a trap or conduit for fossil fuels or mineralizing fluids to form petroleum or ore
deposits.
Corals, including some major extinct groups Rugosa and Tabulata, have been important reef
builders through much of the Phanerozoic since the Ordovician Period. However, other organism
groups, such as calcifying algae, especially members of the red algae Rhodophyta, and molluscs
(especially the rudist bivalves during the Cretaceous Period) have created massive structures at
various times. During the Cambrian Period, the conical or tubular skeletons of Archaeocyatha, an
extinct group of uncertain affinities (possibly sponges), built reefs. Other groups, such as the
Bryozoa have been important interstitial organisms, living between the framework builders. The

corals which build reefs today, the Scleractinia, arose after the PermianTriassic extinction event
that wiped out the earlier rugose corals (as well as many other groups), and became increasingly
important reef builders throughout the Mesozoic Era. They may have arisen from a rugose coral
ancestor. Rugose corals built their skeletons of calcite and have a different symmetry from that of
the scleractinian corals, whose skeletons are aragonite. However, there are some unusual
examples of well-preserved aragonitic rugose corals in the late Permian. In addition, calcite has
been reported in the initial post-larval calcification in a few scleractinian corals. Nevertheless,
scleractinian corals (which arose in the middle Triassic) may have arisen from a non-calcifying
ancestor independent of the rugosan corals (which disappeared in the late Permian).