Continental Shelf
Related content
- Abyssal fan
- Abyssal plain
- Accretion (coastal management)
- Acoustical oceanography
- Active continental margin
- Airy wave theory
- Amphidromic point
- Anchialine pool
- Anoxic event
- Archipelago
- Arctic Ocean
- Argo (oceanography)
- Atlantic Ocean
- Atmospheric circulation
- Atoll
- Avulsion (river)
- Ayre (landform)
- Ballantine Scale
- Baroclinity
- Barrier island
- Baseline (sea)
- Bathymetric chart
- Bay
- Baymouth bar
- Beach
- Beach cusps
- Beach evolution
- Beach ridge
- Beachrock
- Benthic
- Benthic lander
- Benthic zone
- Bight (geography)
- Black smoker
- Blowhole (geology)
- Borneo
- Boulder
- Boundary current
- Boussinesq approximation (water waves)
- Brackish marsh
- Breaking wave
- Bulkhead line
- Canary Islands
- Cape (geography)
- Category Coastal and oceanic landforms
- Category Coastal geography
- Category Ocean currents
- Category Physical oceanography
- Category Plate tectonics
- Category Tides
- Category Water waves
- Channel (geography)
- Chile
- Clapotis
- Clay
- Cliff
- Cliff-top dune
- Cliffed coast
- Cnoidal wave
- Coast
- Coastal erosion
- Coastal geography
- Coastal management
- Coastal plain
- Coastal waterfall
- Cold seep
- Color of water
- Concordant coastline
- Continent
- Continental crust
- Continental Island
- Continental margin
- Continental rise
- Continental shelf
- Continental shelf of Russia
- Continental shelf pump
- Contourite
- Convention on the Continental Shelf
- Convergent boundary
- Coral reef
- Coriolis effect
- Cove
- Cross sea
- Current (stream)
- Current sea level rise
- Cuspate foreland
- Deep ocean water
- Deep sea
- Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis
- Demersal zone
- Discordant coastline
- Dispersion (water waves)
- Divergent boundary
- Downwelling
- DSV Alvin
- Dune
- Earth tide
- Earthquakes
- Eddy (fluid dynamics)
- Edge wave
- Ekman layer
- Ekman spiral
- Ekman transport
- El Niño-Southern Oscillation
- Emergent coastline
- Equatorial waves
- Estuary
- Exclusive economic zone
- Feeder bluff
- Fetch (geography)
- Firth
- Fjard
- Fjord
- Flat coast
- Fossil fuel
- Fracture zone
- Freshwater marsh
- Fundus (seabed)
- Future sea level
- Gat (landform)
Continental shelf
The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain. Much of the shelf was exposed during glacial periods, but is now submerged under relatively shallow seas (known as shelf seas) and gulfs, and was similarly submerged during other interglacial periods.
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 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 0.5-1°.
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. Such shores are also known as territorial waters.
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