oceanic trench

Also known as submarine trench, trench, deep sea trench

depressions of the sea floor

AI overview

An oceanic trench is a deep depression or valley on the ocean floor, typically formed where tectonic plates meet and one plate slides beneath another. These trenches are important because they are the deepest parts of the ocean and represent areas of significant geological activity that shape Earth's structure.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

In the Vinony graph

Vinony's link graph records 668 inbound references to oceanic trench, and connects out to Ekman transport, plate tectonics and lithosphere.

It sits within the topics Coastal and oceanic landforms, Depressions (geology) and Oceanic trenches.

Vinony links it to 61 Wikipedia language editions.

Wikidata facts

Image: Atlantic-trench.JPG

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Commons category: Oceanic trenches

Sources (1)

wikidata.org

via Wikidata · CC0

~33 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Oceanic crust is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at trenches

Oceanic trenches are prominent, long, narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically 50 to 100 kilometers (30 to 60 mi) wide and 3 to 4 km (1.9 to 2.5 mi) below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, but can be thousands of kilometers in length. There are about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) of oceanic trenches worldwide, mostly around the Pacific Ocean, but also in the eastern Indian Ocean and a few other locations. The greatest ocean depth measured is in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, at a depth of 10,994 m (36,070 ft) below sea level.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “oceanic trench” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.