continental slope

Also found in: Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to continental slope: canyon, Continental Rise, Continental margin, Ocean basin

continental slope

The steep slope descending from the continental shelf to the continental rise.

continental slope

The sloping region between the continental shelf and the continental rise. The continental slope is typically about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) wide, consists of muds and silts, and is often crosscut by submarine canyons.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

continental slope - the steep descent of the seabed from the continental shelf to the abyssal zone

bathyal district, bathyal zone

Davy Jones, Davy Jones's locker, ocean bottom, ocean floor, sea bottom, sea floor, seabed - the bottom of a sea or ocean

References in periodicals archive ?

Macrobenthos of the continental slope off Mejillones Peninsula, northern Chile: results of the Atacama Trench International Expedition (September, 1997).

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

There was no statistical difference in the sightings per unit of effort (SPUE) of whale sharks between the eastern and western continental slope waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Abundance and distribution of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Within the narrow confines of the continental shelf, flesh water from rivers and cold water from coast-hugging currents confront warmer, saltier, deeper water masses near the continental slope.

The cacophony on the coast: the Navy's deep-ocean acoustic detection methods don't apply in complex shallow waters

In summer, bowheads selected continental slope waters and moderate ice conditions; white whales selected slope and basin waters and moderate to heavy ice conditions; and gray whales selected coastal/shoal waters and open water.

Cetacean habitat selection in the Alaskan Arctic during summer and autumn

Now, a study in the January Geology depicts a striking variation in the steepness and shape of the continental slope around the United States.

How steep is the continental slope?

We willdetermine the hydrogeological system, and numerically simulate scenarios of changing fluid flow rates, and how they affect pore pressureto study their potential effect on slope stability along the continental slope offshore Svalbard Archipelago (Norway).

ARCTIC GEO-HAZARDS: Arctic Geo-hazards, Geo-fluids and Climate Change

The bigeye chimaera Hydrolagus macro-phthalmus De Buen, 1959; was described from the continental slope of central Chile and the Pacific spookfish Rhinochimaera pacifica (Mitsukuri, 1895), was reported by Pequeno (1989) from the deep continental slope in central Chile.

First record of Hydrolagus melanophasma James, Ebert, Long & Didier, 2009 (Chondrichthyes, Chimaeriformes, Holocephali) from the southeastern Pacific Ocean/Primer registro de Hydrolagus melanophasma James, Ebert, Long & Didier, 2009 (Chondrichthyes, Chimaeriformes, Holocephali) en el Oceano Pacifico suroriental

On the northern continental slope of the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, a process known as "gas washing" fills subsurface petroleum reservoirs with natural gas that flows upward from even deeper reservoirs in the Earth's crust.

When seafloor meets ocean, the chemistry is amazing: in more and more places, scientists are finding vast amounts of natural gas on the ocean bottom

Bottlenose dolphins and Atlantic spotted dolphins were encountered primarily in continental shelf (<200 m) and continental slope waters (200-2000 m).

Abundance of cetaceans in the southern U.S. North Atlantic Ocean during summer 1998

Such a tremendous shock could have sent gigantic mudslides down the continental slope and into deeper waters capable of generating a tsunami, Hildebrand explains.

Closing in on the killer

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announces today the availability of a new two-volume study report, Investigations of Chemosynthetic Communities on the Lower Continental Slope of the Gulf of Mexico.

United States : 100 New Species of Marine Life Discovered through BOEM Collaborative Research in Gulf of Mexico