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Continental margin, the submarine edge of the continental crust distinguished by relatively
light and isostatically high-floating material in comparison with the adjacent oceanic crust. It is
the name for the collective area that encompasses the continental shelf, continental slope,
and continental rise. The characteristics of the various continental margins are shaped by a
number of factors. Chief among these are tectonics, fluctuations of sea level, the size of
the rivers that empty onto a margin as determined by the amount of sediment they carry, and
the energy conditions or strength of the ocean waves and currents along the margin.

continental marginThe broad, gentle pitch of the continental shelf gives way to the relatively steep continental
slope. The more gradual transition to the abyssal plain is a sediment-filled region called the continental rise. The
continental shelf, slope, and rise are collectively called the continental margin.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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Continental margin
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RELATED TOPICS

 Ocean basin
 Continental shelf
 Submarine canyon
 Continent
 Continental slope
 Submarine slump
 Shelf break
  Shoal
 Escarpment
 Coastal feature

Margin Types
Continental margins on the leading edges of tectonic plates, like those around the rim of
the Pacific Ocean, are usually narrow and have steep continental slopes and either poorly
developed continental rises or none at all. The continental slope is often steep and falls away
directly into a deep-sea trench. In many cases, the leading-edge margins are backed by mountain
ranges. Continental margins on the trailing side of tectonic plates, like those around the Atlantic
Ocean, are broad, with gentle continental slopes and well-developed continental rises. The
adjacent land area is commonly a broad coastal plain that, depending on the state of sea level,
may become submerged from time to time and hence part of the continental margin.
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Since continental margins are the shallowest parts of the world’s oceans, they are most affected
by changes in sea level. Worldwide changes in sea level, called eustatic sea-level changes, have
occurred throughout geologic history. The most common causes of such sea-level changes are
global climatic fluctuations that lead to major glacial advances and retreats—that is, ice ages and
interglacial periods. Other causes that are not as well understood may include major mountain-
building events and isostatic changes in crustal plates. When continental glaciers advance, as
they did several times during the Pleistocene Epoch (which extended from about 2.6 million to
11,700 years ago), water that would normally be in the oceans is locked up as ice on land,
resulting in a drop in sea level. As the glaciers retreat, more water is fed to the ocean basins and
the sea level rises. Fluctuations from highstand to lowstand have totaled 250 metres (about 800
feet) or more during Cenozoic time (roughly the last 65.5 million years),
with concomitant fluctuations in exposure and flooding of the continental margins. (During a
highstand the sea level is above the edge of the continental shelf, while during a lowstand it is
below the shelf edge.)
Rivers bring a variety of sediments to the coast. These are classified by their mineralogy and by
particle size and include sand, silt, and clay. To sedimentologists, sand is a grain of
any composition from 63 to 2,000 micrometres (0.002 to 0.08 inch) in its largest diameter. Silt is
4 to 62 micrometres (0.0002 to 0.002 inch), and clay is any particle less than 4 micrometres.
Most of the detrital minerals brought to the continental margins by rivers in sand and silt sizes
are quartz, feldspars, and mica; those of clay size are a suite of clay minerals that most
commonly include smectite, kaolinite, and illite. (Clay can, in other words, refer either to particle
size or to a group of minerals.) These, then, are the mineral constituents that together with
calcium carbonates produced in the oceans by biogenic activity as shells and the hard parts
of plants and animals, go to make up the sedimentary packages that are deposited on
and constitute a fundamental part of continental margins.
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A constant battle is being waged between the rivers that bring sediments eroded from the land to
the sea and the waves and currents of the receiving body of water. This dynamic struggle goes on
year after year, century after century, sometimes for millions of years. Take, for example, the
north coast of the Gulf of Mexico, into which the Mississippi River flows. The continental
margin at this site is subject to relatively low wave and current energy, and so the river filled up
most of the adjacent continental shelf with a delta and typically dumps over 200 million tons of
sediment each year directly at the top of the continental slope. By contrast, the Columbia
River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States carries 131 million tons to the coast, where
the sediments are attacked by the large waves and currents normal for that margin. As a result,
sediments are widely dispersed, and the shelf is not filled with a large subaerial delta.
The effects of this battle are easily seen where human activities have interfered with the transport
of sediments to the sea by major rivers. For example, the Nile River delta is retreating rapidly,
widening the submerged portion of the continental margin, because the Aswan High Dam has
trapped much of the sediment normally fed to the delta front. The lower Mississippi River has
been artificially maintained in a channel by high man-made levees. These have stopped the
floods that fed much of the western delta margin. Because of this, coupled with a slow rise in sea
level and the effects of canals dug in the delta wetlands, the coast has begun to retreat
significantly.
When rivers carrying sediment from the interiors of continents reach the sea, several things
happen. Velocity in the river jet decreases rapidly, and the sand particles drop out to be picked
up by the waves and currents along the coast, where they feed beaches or barrier island systems.
If the river has a large enough discharge, the finer-than-sand-sized materials may be carried for
kilometres onto the margin in a fresh- or brackish-water plume. The surf system then acts as a
wave filter, trapping the sand in the coastal zone but allowing the finer materials to be carried out
onto the margin. When estuaries are the receiving bodies of water on the coastal boundaries of
continental margins, as in the case of the east coast of North America, virtually all the sediments
brought down by the rivers are trapped within the confines of the estuaries.
In addition to the two primary types of continental margins, there also are special types that do
not readily fit either category. One of the most intensely studied margins of the world is
the Borderland, the continental margin of southern California and northern Baja California. It
consists of a series of offshore basins and ridges, some of which are exposed as islands. This
system of basins and ridges formed as the result of faulting associated with the movement of the
Pacific Plate past the North American Plate. It remains tectonically active today and is related to
the San Andreas Fault system of California. A second special type is the marginal plateau.
The Blake Plateau off the east coast of Florida is a good example. Such a plateau constitutes a
portion of a continental margin that has many of the features of a normal system but is found at
much greater depth—1,000 metres (about 3,300 feet) in the case of the Blake Plateau.
Continental margins can be either constructional or erosional over varying periods of geologic
time, depending on the combination of factors discussed above.
When deposition exceeds erosion, the margin grows seaward, a process of progradation that
builds out as well as up. When the erosive forces are predominant, the margin remains static or
actually retreats over time. Some geologists think that the continental margin of the eastern
United States has retreated as much as 5–30 km (3–19 miles) since the end of the Cretaceous
Period some 65.5 million years ago.
Economic Importance Of Continental Margins
Continental margins are very significant economically. Most of the major fisheries of the world
are located on them. Of these, sport fisheries and related tourist industries are becoming
increasingly important to the economies of developed nations. Paradoxically, continental
 margins also are one of the world’s biggest dump sites. All kinds of wastes are disposed of along
the margins, and the effects of pollution have become a major global concern .
Continental margins are the only parts of the world’s oceans to be effectively exploited for
mineral resources. Millions of tons of sand are mined by dredges each year off the U.S. coasts
alone for beach renourishment projects. From time to time placer deposits also have been
worked. Examples include tin off Indonesia, gold off Alaska, and diamonds off Namibia. By far
and away the largest mineral resources to be exploited from continental margins
are oil and natural gas. Exploration of the continental margins by major oil companies has
intensified and is expected to continue for the foreseeable future because the margins are the
most likely sites of giant undiscovered petroleum deposits. Continental margins are made of
thick accumulations of sedimentary rock, the type of rock in which oil and gas generally occur.
In fact, most of the sedimentary rocks exposed on the continents were originally deposited on
continental margins; thus, even the hydrocarbon deposits found on land were formed for the
most part on ancient continental margins.
Larry James Doyle

LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:

sedimentary rock: Quartz arenites

…shelf areas produced as passive continental margins develop during the early stages of continental
rifting…

metamorphic rock: Distribution of metamorphic rocks

…events have been concentrated on continental margins. This has been a period of depression and
uplift…


oceanic crust
Oceanic crust, the outermost layer of Earth’s lithosphere that is found under the oceans…

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The continental shelf is the portion of the continental margin that transitions from the shore out
towards to ocean. Continental shelves are believed to make up 7 percent of the sea floor. [3] The
width of continental shelves worldwide varies from a 30 meters to 1500 kilometers. [4] The
continental shelf is generally flat, and ends at the shelf break, where there is a drastic increase
in slope angle. The mean slope of continental shelves worldwide is 0° 07’ degrees, and typically
steeper closer to the coastline than it is near the shelf break. [5] At the shelf break begins the
continental slope, which can be one to five kilometers above the deep-ocean floor. The
continental slope often exhibits features called submarine canyons.[4] Submarine canyons often
cut into the continental shelves deeply, with near vertical sides, and continue to cut the
morphology to the abyssal plain.[5] These canyons are often V-shaped, and can sometime
enlarge onto the continental shelf. At the base of the continental slope, there is a sudden
decrease in slope, and the sea floor begins to level out towards the abyssal plain. This portion of
the seafloor is called the continental rise, and marks the outermost zone of the continental
margin.[2]

Bank, rocky or sandy submerged elevation of the seafloor with a summit less than 200 m (650
feet) below the surface but not so high as to endanger navigation. Many banks are local
prominences on continental or island shelves. Similar elevations with tops more than 200 m
below the surface are called oceanic plateaus. Banks whose tops rise close enough to the sea
surface to be hazardous to shipping are called shoals. Some banks provide favourable
conditions for marine life and are therefore important fishing grounds—e.g., the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland

The continental slope is located seaward from the shelf edge and extends to water depths typically
of around 3,000–4,000 m. It may be bounded on its seaward margin by thick deposits comprising
the continental rise or basin-filling deposits of the (essentially flat) abyssal plains

Insular shelves are underwater landmasses surrounding islands. They are

relatively shallow areas that extend from the low waterline, usually to a depth
of about 100 fathoms, where they end at the shelf break, a point of much
steeper slope

insular slope. The declivity from the offshore border of the insular shelf at

depths of from 50 to 100 fathoms (300 to 600 ft or 91 to 183 m) to oceanic
depths. It is characterized by a marked increase in gradient.