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abyssal plain

   Also found in: Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.
abyssal plain: see ocean ocean, interconnected mass of saltwater covering 70.78% of the surface of the earth, often called the world ocean. It is subdivided into four (or five) major units that are separated from each other in most cases by the continental masses. See also oceanography .
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abyssal plain

Flat seafloor area at a depth of 10,000–20,000 ft (3,000–6,000 m), generally adjacent to a continent. The larger plains are hundreds of miles wide and thousands of miles long. The plains are largest and most common in the Atlantic Ocean, less common in the Indian Ocean, and even rarer in the Pacific Ocean, where they occur mainly as small, flat floors of marginal seas or as long, narrow bottoms of trenches. They are thought to be the upper surfaces of land-derived sediment that accumulates in abyssal depressions.
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Within that area lie the Campeche Knolls, 22 elongated hills that stand anywhere from 450 meters to 800 m above the surrounding abyssal plain.
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How many of the following can you define: epifauna, sesile, crevices, infauna, substrate, planktonic, lecithotrophic, demersal, foraminiferan protozoans, macrofauna, meiofauna, abyssal plain, continental shelf, oscillate, flotsam and jetsam.
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Robert Fisher notes that scientists found minerals covering the ocean's abyssal plain during the early days of deep-ocean research.
Back to the Jurassic in space-age subs; deep-ocean exploration for ... by Marino, Gigi / Science News
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