Environmental Thematic Maps and Graphics:
Marine and coastal extent by depth class, elevation features and marine ecoregion

The title of this map is “Marine and coastal extent, by depth class, elevation features and marine ecoregion.” This map provides a visual representation of the water depth classifications of Canada’s oceans.

On the page, there are three maps and two legends to the upper left and right. The first map (top) displays all of Canada, the second map (left) displays the West Coast and the third map (right) displays the East Coast. On the maps there are small numbers corresponding to marine ecoregions.

The maps show seafloor depth in different shades of aqua and blue and the location of sea knolls and mounts as yellow and red points. The first legend (left) lists the map labels and corresponding marine ecoregions. The second legend (right) includes five depth categories: coastal (light aqua), Epipelagic (aqua), Mesopelagic (bright blue), Bathypelagic (royal blue) and Abyssalpelagic (dark blue). The legend also includes two point categories: sea knolls (yellow points) and sea mounts (red points). The legend has two boundary categories: dashed lines indicate province boundaries and fine black lines indicate marine ecoregions.

The ocean depth increases with distance from the coastline with the deepest ocean areas being in the south of the Scotian and Newfoundland-Labrador shelves. The majority of sea knolls and sea mounts are in the Offshore Pacific waters and in the Arctic Basin, with a few located off the East Coast. Most sea knolls and mounts are found in bathypelagic waters.

Notes: This map classifies areas of Canada’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by their maximum water depth. Areas classed as coastal areas have a maximum depth of 50 m, epipelagic have depths from 50 m to a maximum of 200 m, mesopelagic areas have depths of 200 m to a maximum of 1000 m, bathypelagic areas have depths of 1 km to a maximum of 4 km, and abyssalpelagic areas include all areas with depths of more than 4 km.

Source:
GEBCO Compilation Group, 2015, GEBCO 2014 Grid, version 20150318, https://www.gebco.net (accessed December 5, 2018).
Yesson, C. et al., 2011, “The global distribution of seamounts based on 30 arc seconds bathymetry data,” Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, Vol 58, pp. 442-453, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2011.02.004, Data URL: http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/41 (accessed August 22, 2019).