Puerto Rico Trench
Also called: Milwaukee Deep · Topic: Oceans: Hydrological Cycle, Relief of the Ocean Floor, Temperature and Salinity · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 12 "Water (Oceans)"
Meaning
The Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest trench in the Atlantic Ocean. A trench is a long, narrow, steep-sided hollow in the ocean floor. This one lies on the boundary between the Caribbean Plate and the North American Plate. Its deepest point, the Milwaukee Deep, is about 8,400 m deep. Because it sits on a plate boundary, earthquakes happen along it.
Example
The trench lies in the Atlantic Ocean, north of the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean region.
Don't confuse with
- Mariana Trench: this is in the western Pacific, and its Challenger Deep (about 10,935 m) is the deepest point on Earth. The Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest only in the Atlantic.
- Milwaukee Deep: this is the deepest point inside the Puerto Rico Trench, not a separate trench.
Related concepts
- Relief of the ocean floor
- Continental margin
- Continental shelf
- Continental slope
- Abyssal plain
- Oceanic trench
- Mariana Trench
- Sunda Trench