Ocean Vocabulary

Continental Shelf

• Beginning of the shore line

• Covered with thick layers of mud, sand, and rocks

• Sunlight is able to shine, plant and animal life can surive

• Very deep and dark

• Very little sunlight,

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS1-6

NGSS.MS-LS2-3

Continental rise

• Beginning of the shoreline

• Covered with thick layers of mud, sand, and rocks

• Sunlight is able to shine, plant and animal life can surive

• end of the continental shelf

• connects continental slope to the ocean floor

Continental slope

• Beginning of the shoreline

• Covered with thick layers of mud, sand, and rocks

• Sunlight is able to shine, plant and animal life can surive

• end of the continental shelf

• connects continental slope to the ocean floor

Ocean trenches

• Very deep and dark depressions in the ocean floor

• Very little sunlight, animal or plant life

• covered with mud and sand

• Where seamounts are located

Abyssal plain

• Flat area of the ocean floor covered with mud and sand

• where seamounts are located

• Very deep and dark

• Very little sunlight, animal life or plant life

Sediments

• Soil, sand, and minerals washing from land to the water from erosion

• Measure of the salts dissolved in water

• Microscopic organisms that live in aquatics environments

• Tiny invertebrates that float freely in bodies of water

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-1

NGSS.MS-ESS2-2

Salinity

• Soil, sand, and minerals washing from land to the water from erosion

• Measure of the salts dissolved in water

• Microscopic organisms that live in aquatics environments

• Tiny invertebrates that float freely in bodies of water

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS2-1

NGSS.MS-LS2-4

animal-like plankton

• zooplankton

• Measure of the salts dissolved in water

• Microscopic organisms that live in aquatics environments

• Tiny invertebrates that float freely in bodies of water

• Foundation of the aquatic food web

Ocean currents

• ocean waters that travel in large circular patterns

• Caused by wind, temperature, salinity

• Caused by wind and temperature

• Caused by temperature and salinity

• Nothing causes currents

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS2-6

plant-like plankton

• phytoplankton

• Measure of the salts dissolved in water

• Microscopic organisms that live in aquatics environments

• Tiny invertebrates that float freely in bodies of water

• Foundation of the aquatic food web

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS2-1

NGSS.MS-LS2-2

NGSS.MS-LS2-3

NGSS.MS-LS2-4