Submarine canyon

A submarine canyon is a steep-sided valley cut into the sea floor of the continental slope, sometimes extending well onto the continental shelf, having nearly vertical walls, and occasionally having canyon wall heights of up to 5 km, from canyon floor to canyon rim, as with the Great Bahama Canyon. Just as above-sea-level canyons serve as channels for the flow of water across land, so it is commonly held that submarine canyons serve as channels for the flow of turbidity currents across the ocean floor. Turbidity currents are flows of the relatively heavy sediment laden waters that are generated by rivers, streams, submarine landslides, earthquakes, and other soil disturbances. These heavier waters tend to travel downwards across sloped ground, in a fashion similar to an above-sea-level river, as they naturally seek the calmer waters of the abyssal plain, where the particles of turbidity can finally settle and sedimentate out.