Marine geology. Exploring the new frontiers of the ocean / Морская геология. Исследуем новые горизонты океана

This planet contains so much water that perhaps it should have been better named Oceania. It is the only known body in the solar system that is surrounded by water filled with unique geologic structures and teeming with a staggering assortment of marine life. Some of the strangest creatures on Earth, whose ancestors go back several hundred million years, live on the deep ocean floor. Many undersea ridges host an eerie world that time forgot—a cold, dark abyss consisting of tall chimneys spewing hot, mineralrich water that supports unusual species previously unknown to science. The floor of the ocean presents a rugged landscape unmatched anywhere on the continents. Vast undersea mountain ranges much more extensive than those on land crisscross the seabed.Although deeply submerged, the midocean ridges are easily the most prominent features on the planet. The ocean floor is continuously being created at spreading ridges, where molten rock oozes out of the mantle, and destroyed in the deepest trenches of the world. Much of the world’s untapped wealth lies undersea.The seabed therefore offers new frontiers for future exploration of mineral resources. <...>