The
continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each
continentA continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
and associated
coastal plainA coastal plain is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a seacoast and separated from the interior by other features. One of the world's longest coastal plains is located in eastern South America. The southwestern coastal plain of North America is notable for its species diversity...
. Much of the shelf was exposed during
glacial periodA glacial period is an interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate within an ice age...
s, but is now submerged under relatively shallow
seaA sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
s (known as
shelf seas) and
gulfsA bay is an area of water mostly surrounded by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds. Bays also exist as an inlet in a lake or pond. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight...
, and was similarly submerged during other
interglacial periodsAn ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
.
The
continental marginThe continental margin is the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust. Continental margins constitute about 28% of the oceanic area....
, between the continental shelf and the
abyssal plainAn abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3000 and 6000 metres. Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth’s surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest...
, comprises a steep continental slope followed by the flatter continental rise.
SedimentSediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
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 currentA turbidity current is a current of rapidly moving, sediment-laden water moving down a slope through water, or another fluid. The current moves because it has a higher density and turbidity than the fluid through which it flows...
s from the shelf and slope. The continental rise's
gradientIn vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar field is a vector field that points in the direction of the greatest rate of increase of the scalar field, and whose magnitude is the greatest rate of change....
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 SeaThe United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea , which took place from 1973 through 1982...
, the name continental shelf was given a legal definition as the stretch of the
seabedThe seabed is the bottom of the ocean.- Ocean structure :Most of the oceans have a common structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement, and sediment from various sources...
adjacent to the shores of a particular country to which it belongs. Such shores are also known as
territorial watersTerritorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...
.
Geographical distribution
The width of the continental shelf varies considerably – it is not uncommon for an area to have virtually no shelf at all, particularly where the forward edge of an advancing
oceanic plateOceanic crust is the part of Earth's lithosphere that surfaces in the ocean basins. Oceanic crust is primarily composed of mafic rocks, or sima, which is rich in iron and magnesium...
dives beneath
continental crustThe continental crust is the layer of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks which form the continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as continental shelves. This layer is sometimes called sial due to more felsic, or granitic, bulk composition, which lies in...
in an offshore subduction zone such as off the coast of
ChileChile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
or the west coast of
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
. The largest shelf – the
Siberian ShelfThe Siberian Shelf, one of the Arctic Ocean coastal shelves , is the largest continental shelf of the Earth, a part of the continental shelf of Russia. It extends from the continent of Eurasia in the general area of North Siberia into the Arctic Ocean. It stretches to offshore. It is relatively...
in the
Arctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...
– stretches to 1500 kilometres (932.1 mi) in width. The
South China SeaThe South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
lies over another extensive area of continental shelf, the
Sunda ShelfGeologically, the Sunda Shelf is a south east extension of the continental shelf of Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Madura, Bali and their surrounding smaller islands. It covers an area of approximately 1.85 million km2...
, which joins
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, Sumatra, and Java to the Asian mainland. Other familiar bodies of water that overlie continental shelves are the
North SeaIn the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and the
Persian GulfThe Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
. The average width of continental shelves is about 80 km (49.7 mi). The depth of the shelf also varies, but is generally limited to water shallower than 150 m (492.1 ft). The slope of the shelf is usually quite low, on the order of 0.5°; vertical relief is also minimal, at less than 20 m (65.6 ft).
Though the continental shelf is treated as a physiographic province of the
oceanAn ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
, it is not part of the deep ocean basin proper, but the flooded margins of the continent. Passive continental margins such as most of the
AtlanticThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
coasts have wide and shallow shelves, made of thick sedimentary wedges derived from long erosion of a neighboring continent. Active continental margins have narrow, relatively steep shelves, due to frequent earthquakes that move sediment to the deep sea.
Topography
The shelf usually ends at a point of increasing slope (called the
shelf break). The sea floor below the break is the
continental slope. Below the slope is the
continental rise, which finally merges into the deep ocean floor, the
abyssal plainAn abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3000 and 6000 metres. Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth’s surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest...
. The continental shelf and the slope are part of the
continental marginThe continental margin is the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust. Continental margins constitute about 28% of the oceanic area....
.
The shelf area is commonly subdivided into the
inner continental shelf,
mid continental shelf, and
outer continental shelf, each with their specific
geomorphologyGeomorphology is the scientific study of landforms and the processes that shape them...
and
marine biologyMarine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
.
The character of the shelf changes dramatically at the shelf break, where the continental slope begins. With a few exceptions, the shelf break is located at a remarkably uniform depth of roughly 140 m (459.3 ft); this is likely a hallmark of past ice ages, when sea level was lower than it is now.
The continental slope is much steeper than the shelf; the average angle is 3°, but it can be as low as 1° or as high as 10°. The slope is often cut with
submarine canyonA submarine canyon is a steep-sided valley on the sea floor of the continental slope. Many submarine canyons are found as extensions to large rivers; however there are some that have no such association. Canyons cutting the continental slopes have been found at depths greater than 2 km below sea...
s. The physical mechanisms involved in forming these canyons were not well understood until the 1960s.
Sediments
The continental shelves are covered by
terrigenousIn oceanography, terrigenous sediments are those derived from the erosion of rocks on land; that is, that are derived from terrestrial environments. Consisting of sand, mud, and silt carried to sea by rivers, their composition is usually related to their source rocks; deposition of these sediments...
sediments; that is, those derived from erosion of the continents. However, little of the sediment is from current
riverA river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
s; some 60-70% of the sediment on the world's shelves is
relict sediment, deposited during the last ice age, when sea level was 100–120 m lower than it is now.
Sediments usually become increasingly fine with distance from the coast; sand is limited to shallow, wave-agitated waters, while silt and clays are deposited in quieter, deep water far offshore. These shelf sediments accumulate at an average rate of 30 cm/1000 years, with a range from 15–40 cm. Though slow by human standards, this rate is much faster than that for deep-sea
pelagic sedimentsPelagic sediment or pelagite is a fine-grained sediment that has accumulated by the settling of particles through the water column to the ocean floor beneath the open ocean far from land. These particles consist primarily of either the microscopic, calcareous or siliceous shells of phytoplankton or...
.
Biota
Continental shelves teem with life, because of the sunlight available in shallow waters, in contrast to the biotic desert of the oceans'
abyssal plainAn abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3000 and 6000 metres. Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth’s surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest...
. The pelagic (water column) environment of the continental shelf constitutes the
neritic zoneThe neritic zone, also called coastal waters, the coastal ocean or the sublittoral zone, is the part of the ocean extending from the low tide mark to the edge of the continental shelf, with a relatively shallow depth extending to about 200 meters...
, and the benthic (sea floor) province of the shelf is the sublittoral zone.
Though the shelves are usually fertile, if
anoxicOceanic anoxic events or anoxic events occur when the Earth's oceans become completely depleted of oxygen below the surface levels. Although anoxic events have not happened for millions of years, the geological record shows that they happened many times in the past. Anoxic events may have caused...
conditions prevail during sedimentation, the deposits may over geologic time become
sourcesIn petroleum geology, source rock refers to rocks from which hydrocarbons have been generated or are capable of being generated. They form one of the necessary elements of a working petroleum system. They are organic-rich sediments that may have been deposited in a variety of environments including...
for
fossil fuelFossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
s.
Economic significance
The relatively accessible continental shelf is the best understood part of the ocean floor. Most commercial exploitation from the sea, such as metallic-ore, non-metallic ore, and
hydrocarbonIn organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
extraction, takes place on the continental shelf. Sovereign rights over their continental shelves up to 200 nautical miles from coastal baselines, within their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), were claimed by the marine nations that signed the
Convention on the Continental ShelfThe Convention on the Continental Shelf was an international treaty created to codify the rules of international law relating to continental shelves. The treaty, after entering into force 10 June 1964, established the rights of a sovereign state over the continental shelf surrounding it, if there...
drawn up by the UN's
International Law CommissionThe International Law Commission was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 for the "promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification."It holds an annual session at the United Nations Office at Geneva....
in 1958 partly superseded by the 1982
United Nations Convention on the Law of the SeaThe United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea , which took place from 1973 through 1982...
.
The legal definition of a continental shelf differs significantly from the geological definition. UNCLOS states that the shelf and slope extend to the limit of the
continental marginThe continental margin is the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust. Continental margins constitute about 28% of the oceanic area....
, but no less than 200 nautical miles from the
baselineA baseline is the line from which the seaward limits of a State's territorial sea and certain other maritime zones of jurisdiction are measured. Normally, a sea baseline follows the low-water line of a coastal State...
. Thus inhabited volcanic islands such as the
CanariesThe Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
, which have no actual continental shelf, nonetheless have a legal continental shelf, whereas uninhabitable islands have no shelf.
See also
- Baseline
A baseline is the line from which the seaward limits of a State's territorial sea and certain other maritime zones of jurisdiction are measured. Normally, a sea baseline follows the low-water line of a coastal State...
- Continental Island
- Continental shelf pump
In oceanic biogeochemistry, the continental shelf pump is proposed to operate in the shallow waters of the continental shelves, acting as a mechanism to transport carbon from surface waters to the interior of the adjacent deep ocean.-Overview:Originally formulated by Tsunogai et al. , the pump is...
- Continental shelf of Russia
The continental shelf of Russia is a continental shelf adjacent to Russia. Geologically, the extent of the shelf is defined as the entirety of the continental shelves adjacent to Russia's coast...
- Exclusive economic zone
Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic zone is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including production of energy from water and wind. It stretches from the seaward edge of the state's territorial sea out to 200 nautical...
- International waters
The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems , and wetlands.Oceans,...
- Land bridge
A land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands...
- Outer Continental Shelf
The Outer Continental Shelf is a peculiarity of the political geography of the United States and is the part of the internationally recognized continental shelf of the United States which does not fall under the jurisdictions of the individual U.S...
- Region of Freshwater Influence
Region of Freshwater Influence , a term coined by Prof. John Simpson of the University of Wales, Bangor, and co-authors, in 1993 in Oceanologica Acta for the Rhine river plume...
- Territorial waters
Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...
- Passive margin
A passive margin is the transition between oceanic and continental crust which is not an active plate margin. It is constructed by sedimentation above an ancient rift, now marked by transitional crust. Continental rifting creates new ocean basins. Eventually the continental rift forms a mid-oceanic...
External links