Submarine geology / Подводная геология

Geologists have always known the importance of investigating the world's vast submerged territory, but until the 1940s it remained virtually a terra incognito. Finally, the world's worst war, along with all its horror, had among a few redeeming features the persuasion of naval scientists and their civilian advisors that naval operations needed a background knowledge of the ocean and its floor. The geological study of this ocean realm was first called submarine geology but is now more commonly referred to as marine geology, or less commonly as geological oceanography. The three names can be used synonymously. Included in this field are the study of the coasts and beaches as far as they are related to marine processes; of the continental terraces, consisting of broad shallow-water platforms surrounding the continents and the relatively steep slopes that extend to the abyssal depths; and of the deep-ocean floor. The last, by far the largest area of the oceans <...>