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USGS CMG InfoBank: Submarine Canyons

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Comment: 06:11 - 06:56 (00:45)

Source: Annenberg/CPB Resources - Earth Revealed - 4. The Sea Floor

Keywords: "submarine canyon", "Atlantic Ocean", "Pacific Ocean", fan, "Tanya L. Atwater"

Our transcription: In many places, the Continental Shelves and Slopes are furrowed by deep V-shaped valleys known as "Submarine Canyons."

Where the shelf is wide, as on the Atlantic Coast of the United States, these canyons begin far out from shore near the outer edge of the shelf.

On the narrow continental shelves of the Pacific Coast, the heads of some canyons lie close to the surf zone.

They've been a mystery for a long time, why they're there and how they're cut so deep, and they're also very interesting because an awful lot of the sediment that comes off the continent and onto the ocean floor goes down those canyons and deposits onto the ocean floor and makes huge fans of sediment at the foot of the slope.

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