How to Use continental shelf in a Sentence

continental shelf

noun
  • But how that water came to be on the continental shelf in the first place is a mystery.
    — Hannah Richter, Ars Technica, 20 May 2024
  • The chain of events that played out here doesn’t happen every time a storm crosses the continental shelf.
    — Alejandra Borunda, National Geographic, 9 Oct. 2020
  • Still others believe the crabs might have simply walked off the continental shelf.
    — Sam Stone, Bon Appétit, 28 Nov. 2022
  • But the continental shelf off the coast of the Pacific plunges steeply.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Dec. 2022
  • What visitors don’t see is that just off the western coast, the continental shelf drops off to great depths.
    — Alan Crawford, Bloomberg, 20 Apr. 2026
  • Massive river deltas flowed out across the continental shelf.
    — Michael J. Coren, Quartz, 22 June 2019
  • The crabs scuttled off the continental shelf and scientists just didn’t see them.
    — Laura Reiley, Anchorage Daily News, 21 Aug. 2022
  • This zone includes all rights to resources in the water and on and under the seafloor—the continental shelf.
    — Gloria Dickie, Scientific American, 18 May 2021
  • This proved again that tsunamis travel faster in deeper water, and the abyss lurks just beyond the continental shelf.
    — Ned Rozell, Anchorage Daily News, 3 Feb. 2018
  • Their lineup drops off more steeply than a continental shelf, and their entire coaching staff is feeling the heat.
    — Andrew Baggarly, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2026
  • But the continental shelf off the coast of the Pacific plunges quickly and steeply.
    — Rob Nikolewski, latimes.com, 8 May 2018
  • Hydrates can still be found at the edge of many continental shelves, Tollefson reports.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 5 June 2017
  • If the treaty is found to extend to the continental shelf, then signatories would have equal rights to its resources.
    — Laura Paddison, CNN, 27 Jan. 2023
  • Typically, storms that run over the continental shelf cause an upwelling that works to weaken the storm.
    — Kimberly Miller, sun-sentinel.com, 9 Oct. 2019
  • Greece claims part of the area is over its own continental shelf and has demanded that the Turkish ships withdraw.
    — Nicholas Paphitis, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Aug. 2020
  • The same applies to the first 200 nautical miles of the seafloor, the continental shelf.
    — David Bressan, Forbes, 12 May 2021
  • In some places, like the Amundsen Sea, the warm water even reaches the continental shelf.
    — Eric Betz, Discover Magazine, 19 May 2017
  • The country considers large amounts of the sea its continental shelf, per Today.
    — Kirsty Hatcher, Peoplemag, 9 Aug. 2023
  • If the iceberg runs aground on the continental shelf, its disturbance of the seabed could release nutrients too.
    — Thomas Page, CNN, 11 Dec. 2020
  • Greece claims part of the area covers its continental shelf and has demanded that the Turkish ships withdraw.
    — Fox News, 14 Aug. 2020
  • Some adult females, outside of breeding season, travel far past the continental shelf to find food, while others stay close to land.
    — Samantha Agate, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 29 Apr. 2026
  • The continental shelf emerged as the most distinct feature, enduring through time and changing sea levels.
    — Jacopo Prisco, CNN Money, 20 Apr. 2026
  • In Norway however, the focus will be on seabed crusts on the country’s continental shelf.
    — Yusuf Khan, WSJ, 20 June 2023
  • The Chukchi Sea region includes a lot of shallow water over the continental shelf.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 25 Aug. 2016
  • Warm air is moving over the still-cool continental shelf waters off the upper Texas Gulf Coast.
    — Newsroom Meteorologist, Houston Chronicle, 10 Feb. 2026
  • But along the West Coast, where tall cliffs and a deep continental shelf tend to blunt the impact of rising seas, there were problems, too.
    — Kurtis Alexander, SFChronicle.com, 10 July 2019
  • Because of this, targeting them often requires a long ride to the edge of the continental shelf in the Atlantic.
    — Joe Cermele, Field & Stream, 23 Aug. 2023
  • Outside of breeding season, some adult females travel far past the continental shelf hunting food while others stay close to land.
    — Samantha Agate, Charlotte Observer, 29 Apr. 2026
  • On the edge of the continental shelf, a 40-mile-long trench cuts into the ocean floor, creating a deep, submarine canyon.
    — Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 29 July 2024
  • Instead, the new data show that glaciers, likely extending from the continental shelf, blew air into parts of the ocean, clearing it of ice.
    — Kelsey Lindsey, Alaska Dispatch News, 16 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'continental shelf.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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