The Ocean Floor
Know that the ocean floor is not flat — it has mountains, valleys, and the deepest trenches on Earth — and that the deepest point is the Mariana Trench, deeper than Mount Everest is tall
What a learner can do afterwards
- State that the ocean floor has varied terrain including mountains, ridges, and trenches
- Name the Mariana Trench as the deepest point on Earth
- Compare its depth to a familiar reference like Mount Everest's height
The lesson
The ocean floor is not flat like the bottom of a pool. It has tall mountains, deep valleys, and cracks called trenches. Some of these mountains are taller than anything on land, but they are hidden under the water.
Long underwater mountain ranges called ridges stretch across the ocean floor. Next to some ridges are deep canyons, like valleys carved into the seafloor. The floor rises and falls just like the land you walk on.
The Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean, is the deepest place on Earth. If you could drop Mount Everest into it, the mountain's peak would still be underwater.
The ocean floor has mountains, valleys, and trenches, and the Mariana Trench is the deepest spot on Earth, deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
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Where it sits
Learn first
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Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.