The Laurentian Fan or Laurentian Abyss is an underwater depression off the eastern coast of
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
in the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
.
Location and origin
Not a trench, but more of an "underwater valley", it is estimated to be at most ~19,685 feet (3.7 miles; 6.0 km) in depth. The Laurentian Fan is a product of glaciation and water currents from the
Gulf of Saint Lawrence
The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a gulf that fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in ...
.
[Information gathered via a phone interview with Dr. Norm Catto of Memorial University - August 15, 2008] It is part of the Laurentian cone region, bound by the
Laurentian Channel
The Laurentian Channel is a deep submarine valley off the coast of eastern Canada in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
The channel is of glacial origin and is the submerged valley of the historic Saint Lawrence River, running from a sharp escarpment ...
and the
Sohm Abyssal Plain
The Sohm Abyssal Plain is in the North Atlantic and has an area of around . It is located off the coast of the Canadian Maritime provinces and New England in the United States. The region was named for Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm, a German naturali ...
. The approximate coordinates are .
Ecosystem
Towards the end of the 1980s, it was discovered unexpectedly that the fan is the site of
hydrothermal vents
Hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hots ...
with their own
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...
s functioning in the absence of sunlight. These supported organisms such as
vesicomyid and
thyasirid clam
Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusc. The word is often applied only to those that are deemed edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the sea floor or riverbeds. Clams h ...
s, as well as marine
gastropods
Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().
This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. Ther ...
and other
epifauna similar to those found in hydrothermal and
cold seep
A cold seep (sometimes called a cold vent) is an area of the ocean floor where seepage of fluids rich in hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other hydrocarbons occurs, often in the form of a brine pool. ''Cold'' does not mean that the temperature ...
environments elsewhere.
Popular culture
* The Laurentian Fan plays a geographic role in the plotline of the 1990 film ''
The Hunt for Red October
''The Hunt for Red October'' is the debut novel by American author Tom Clancy, first published on October 1, 1984, by the Naval Institute Press. It depicts Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius as he seemingly goes rogue with his country's cutt ...
''.
* The Laurentian Fan appears at the end of the 2007 film ''
Transformers
''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two Extraterrestrials in fiction, alien robot fac ...
'', with the United States government depicted dumping the remains of
Megatron
Megatron is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the ''Transformers'' media franchise produced by the American toy company Hasbro and the Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. He is the tyrannical leader of the Decepticons, a villaino ...
, the other defeated
Decepticons
The Decepticons are a fictional faction of sentient robots in the ''Transformers'' multimedia franchise. Serving as the main antagonists in the franchise, their goals include conquering their fictional homeworld planet Cybertron, defeating ...
, and the deceased
Autobot
The Autobots are a fictional faction of sentient robots in the ''Transformers'' multimedia franchise. The Autobots are living robots from the planet Cybertron who, like most Transformers, are each imbued with a unique "life force" known as a " ...
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
into the fan, in hopes that the crushing depths and low temperature will destroy the remains. The fan later reappears in the film's 2009 sequel ''
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'', where the Decepticons revive Megatron.
See also
*
Abyssal plain
An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between . Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth's surface. They ...
References
;Notes
External links
*
Landforms of the Atlantic Ocean
Oceanography of Canada
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