Ocean Vocabulary

The earth’s largest ocean.

The earth’s second largest ocean.

The earth’s third largest ocean.

It is the smallest and shallowest of the world’s five major oceanic divisions.

Generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica.

A measure of the amount of dissolved salts in a given amount of liquid.

Scientists have divided the ocean into five main layers. These layers, known as “zones”, extend from the surface to the most extreme depths where light can no longer penetrate.

A thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid.

The deeper parts of the sea.

The continuous movement of water from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean.

A type of vaporization of a liquid.

The change of state from a gas to a liquid.

Any form of water that falls to the earths surface from the clouds.

The gently sloping section of the continental margin located between the shoreline and the continental slope.

The steeply inclined section of the continental margin located between the continental rise and the continental shelf.

The Continental Divide of the Americas is the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas.

A large, flat, almost level area of the deep-ocean basin.

A long, undersea mountain chain that forms along the floor of the major oceans.

A long, narrow valley that forms as tectonic plates separate.

A submerged mountain on the ocean floor that is at least 1000 m high and that has a volcanic origin.

A steep and long depression in the deep sea floor that runs parallel to a chain of volcanic islands or a continental margin.

The mass of mostly microscopic organisms that float or drift freely in freshwater and marine environments.

All organisms that swim actively in open water, independent of currents.

The flora and fauna found on the bottom, or in the bottom sediments, of a sea, lake, or other body of water.