continental margin

[¦känt·ən¦ent·əl ′mär·jən]

(geology)

Those provinces between the shoreline and the deep-sea bottom; generally consists of the continental borderland, shelf, slope, and rise.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Continental Margin

the peripheral area of the floor of the world’s ocean constituting, in geological structure and relief, a continuation of the continental land.

The total area of the continental margin is about 81.5 million sq km. It consists of the shelf, the continental slope, and the continental rise. The earth’s crust in the continental margin is of the continental type. In certain regions the continental margin is characterized by somewhat rugged relief and by the absence of a clear division into the shelf, slope, and rise. In tectonic terms, the continental margin is usually classified among the continental platforms, but, in some places, seismic and volcanic activity are observed. The continental margin is the arena of the most active submarine processes (wave action, tides, currents, floating ice and organisms).

Owing to the proximity of dry land, a great deal of terrigenous material is deposited in the continental margin. The thickest deposits form in the depressions of the shelf, on the marginal plateaus, and in the continental rise. The continental margin is noted for the great variety of benthic deposits, particularly within the shelf. This is explained not only by the diversity of facies distribution but also by the broad distribution of relic deposits of subaerial genesis on the shelf. The continental margin is the most accessible part of the ocean floor for development. Oil and gas deposits on the shelf are currently being exploited.

O. K. LEONT’EV

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References in periodicals archive

continental margin," and are thus included in the continental

Warm is the new cold: global warming, oil, UNCLOS Article 76, and how an Arctic Treaty might stop a new Cold War

General.--From the Ano Nuevo rookery in central California, all males moved directly north or northwest to destinations along the continental margin, diving continuously en route (Fig.

FORAGING ECOLOGY OF NORTHERN ELEPHANT SEALS

The continental margin sediment trap work has been supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Global Programs.

Continental margin particle flux: seasonal cycles and archives of global change

Along the Chilean coast, the role that these communities could play at seamounts and along the continental margins is still unknown (Koslow et al., 2001; Levin, 2002), but recent efforts began to discover evidence of deep corals in the southeastern Pacific coast (Haussermann & Forsterra, 2007a).

Colonial life under the Humboldt current system: deep-sea corals from O'Higgins I seamount/La vida colonial bajo el sistema de la corriente de Humboldt: corales de aguas profundas en el monte submarino O'Higgins I

Because of its complexity and variety, the continental margin is often defined, in geological terms, as a zone with unclear boundaries, thereby making it unsuitable to be used in a legal definition of marine jurisdiction.

Defining Canada's extended continental shelves

An "oceanic ridge" is not part of the continental margin at all, (73) suggesting that a coastal state cannot rely on an oceanic ridge to extend its continental shelf beyond 200 miles from baselines.

Judicial and arbitral proceedings and the outer limits of the continental shelf

This thermal event presented in this lapse for western Colombia are related to the thermal activity of two different lithospheres, one properly oceanic to the west and other related to the continental margin, showing both two unlike geodynamics panoramas.

The Romeral Fault System: a shear and deformed extinct subduction zone between oceanic and continental lithospheres in northwestern South America

He describes lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy of this important period of the north Spanish continental margin, where the transition of clastic-dominated lithofacies (Wealden) to carbonate-dominated lithofacies (Urgonian) occurs.

Introduccion

As members of JOIDES, British scientists recognized that pressing issues in geoscience, such as the linkages between ocean history and global climate change, the evolution of continental margins, and the effects that fluids and gases emanating from the ocean floor have on the ocean's geochemistry, required a platform with increased capability.

Great Britain

They conclude this region was a continental margin, and strengthen ties between the Nome Complex (particularly the Layered sequence) and other areas of the terrane (especially the Brooks Range).

Reconstruction of a Late Proterozoic to Devonian Continental Margin Sequence, Northern Alaska, Its Paleogeographic Significance, and Contained Base-Metal Sulfide Deposits

Zubiri said under the measure, the continental shelf of the Philippines shall be "comprised of the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin, or to a distance of two hundred (200) nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured where the outer edge of the continental margin does not extend up to that distance."

House passes bill defining Philippine maritime zones

From the preface: "This volume is a contribution to COMARGE (Continental Margin Ecosystems)...one of 14 Census of Marine Life...projects dedicated to the description and understanding of biodiversity patterns on continental margins." Ten contributions discuss squat lobsters in terms of their morphology, taxonomy, phylogeny and fossil record, developmental biology, worldwide distribution patterns, ecology and position in the food chain, reproductive biology, parasites, and fisheries.

The biology of squat lobsters