earth science

Monterey Canyon

Monterey Canyon is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Monterey Canyon rather than just read about it. In short: Monterey Canyon, or Monterey Submarine Canyon, is a submarine canyon in Monterey Bay, California with steep canyon walls measuring a full 1 mile (1.6 km) in height from bottom to top, which rivals the depth of the Grand Canyon itself. It is the largest submarine canyon along the West coast of the North American continent, and was formed by the underwater erosion process known as turbidity current erosion.

Key takeaways

Monterey Canyon belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Monterey Canyon to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Monterey Canyon from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Monterey Canyon, or Monterey Submarine Canyon, is a submarine canyon in Monterey Bay, California with steep canyon walls measuring a full 1 mile (1.6 km) in height from bottom to top, which rivals the depth of the Grand Canyon itself. It is the largest submarine canyon along the West coast of the North American continent, and was formed by the underwater erosion process known as turbidity current erosion. Many questions remain unresolved regarding the exact nature of its origins, and as such it is the subject of several ongoing geological and marine life studies being carried out by scientists stationed at the nearby Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and other oceanographic institutions. Monterey Canyon begins at Moss Landing, California, which is situated along the middle of the coast of Monterey Bay, and extends horizontally 95 mi (153 km) under the Pacific Ocean, where it terminates at the Monterey Canyon submarine fan, reaching depths of up to 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) below surface level at its downstream mouth. It is a part of the greater Monterey Bay Canyon System, which consists of Monterey, Soquel, and Carmel Canyons. The canyon's depth and nutrient availability (due to the regular influx of nutrient-rich sediment) provide a habitat suitable for many marine life forms. The Soquel Canyon State Marine Conservation Area protects a side-branch of the Monterey Submarine Canyon. Like an underwater park, this marine protected area helps conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Geomorphology While the erosion process of turbidity current erosion which once carved out the submarine Monterey Canyon is well known, the cause of the great depth and length of this canyon, carved out millions of years ago, and the unusually large size of the sedimentary deposit (fan) at its underwater mouth 95 mi (153 km) west of Monterey, have all been a cause for some speculation. Typically, submarine canyons of this depth and length which cut so far across a continental shelf, and with such large sedimentary fans attached, are only formed when aligned to receive the outflows of very major rivers, such as the Mississippi or the Amazon, and such canyons are not typically found in alignment with relatively low-flow rivers such as the Salinas River. The dominant theory is that it is the remnant outlet of a larger river that may have once drained the Central Valley, possibly even via the Los Angeles Basin (recalling that the canyon has steadily moved northwest due to fault action along the San Andreas fault). Research supports the latter due to the chemistry in iron-manganese deposits on seamounts near the Canyon indicating a sediment origin of southern Sierra Nevada or western Basin and Range. The Salinas River is thought to have been the outlet for prehistoric Lake Corcoran, which once occupied much of the Central Valley. The Upper Turbidite Unit of the Monterey submarine fan may have formed soon after Lake Corcoran found a new outlet and was catastrophically drained via what is now San Francisco Bay, when sediment from the former lake bed was carried out its new outlet and then down to Monterey Bay by longshore drift. Reconstructions of ancient land configurations via plate-tectonic theory indicate that the canyon has moved north to its current location via the horizontal slip-action of the San Andreas Fault and would have been approximately where Santa Barbara is located when both the San Andreas Fault and the Gulf of California came into being. Similar undersea canyons exist at the mouths of other large rivers around the world today, such as the Hudson Canyon. As no major river lies at the head of Monterey Canyon today, it is surmised that it may have come into being when such a river did so in the past. The clues to the ancient origins of this canyon lie somewhere at the 2-mile-deep (3.2 km) downstream mouth of the canyon in a huge sedimentary bed called the Monterey Fan. This fan appears to be far too massive to have accumulated from the modern coastal streams. Research including core sampling is ongoing. Thus far, only "recent" sedimentary cores have been obtained. The oldest cores lie deeply buried, and remain to be probed. Once these deeper core samples have been properly analyzed and traced back to their original sedimentary sources, the answers to such speculations as to which river might have provided the high level of turbidity-current flows which are believed to have most probably been required to carve out such a deep and long canyon, with such a huge sedimentary deposit at its mouth, will all hopefully be finally resolved.

References

Citations

Journal Allen, Robert Lloyd Jr.; Defense Technical Information Center (March 1982). "The Impact of Tectonic Activity in the Development of Monterey Submarine Canyon". archive.org. Naval Postgraduate School Monterey. Retrieved 27 July 2019.

Website "Monterey Canyon System". Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 6 February 2009. Archived from the original on 26 July 2009. Retrieved 27 September 2016.

External links Moss Landing Marine Laboratories website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Monterey Canyon

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Monterey Canyon claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Monterey Canyon before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Monterey Canyon ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Monterey Canyon

In research: Monterey Canyon appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Monterey Canyon in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Monterey Canyon is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Canyons and gorges of California, Landforms of Monterey County, California, Landforms of Santa Cruz County, California, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Monterey Canyon outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Monterey Canyon in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Monterey Canyon means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Monterey Canyon out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Monterey Canyon in simple terms?

Why does Monterey Canyon matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Monterey Canyon?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Monterey Canyon.