If it were possible to sponge up all the ocean water and expose the ocean floor, what do you think you’d see? A monotonous landscape of endless, smooth, brown sand?
Well, you might see some areas like that. They’re called abyssal plains. But you’d also see a great variety of other formations, including enormously high mountains, thousand-mile-long trenches, volcanoes, deep basins, and plateaus.
The ocean floor is deep—nearly seven miles at its deepest spot. It’s dark—pitch-black with no light able to filter through. It’s ice-cold, with temperatures near the freezing point. The weight of the overlying water applies so much pressure that only the most advanced submarines can enter the deep sea without being crushed beyond recognition.
