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The Ocean |
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Info: Biography, Pictures, Discography of all CDs & DVDs |
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| "One of the most significant questions facing marine ecologists today, is just how much of an impact global variations in the environment are having on the dispersal of larval and juvenile marine species from open oceans to coral reefs.Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is emitted in great quantities as bubbles from seeps on the ocean floor near Santa Barbara.Subscribe to The Ocean News Feed
New to RSS?Though cave diving is one of the most dangerous sports, it unlocks a most fascinating world, a world of darkness.If you don't have an account, sign up for a demo here.That's about the size relationship of one human being to the ocean.Oceans Alive
Most scientists think life began in the ocean over 3 billion years ago.Today, the ocean contains an amazing array of life at every depth.Marine animals come in all kinds of weird shapes, sizes, and colors; and they live in all kinds of different environments within the ocean.There, the water temperature changes from scalding hot to icy cold in the space of a few feet.No matter where you go in the ocean, you will always find life.Gimme Energy
Life in the ocean depends on energy.Photosynthesis is an important process that occurs at the surface of the ocean.But deep within the ocean, at hydrothermal vents, food chains are based on the conversion of chemical energy into food.But because the ocean is so big, humans have divided it up and named the different parts.But otherwise, they're exactly the same thing.While some scientists claim there are five oceans, others claim there are only four or even three oceans.Teacher Tools such as:Lesson Plan Creator, Quiz Builder, and Worksheet Generator are no longer available.Most of the ocean is as dark as night, with temperatures either just above freezing or, in a few places, hotter than humans can handle.But that doesn't mean that the ocean is quiet and empty.Five oceanic divisions are usually reckoned: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern; the last two listed are sometimes consolidated into the first three.Okeanos (Oceanus) in Greek) is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere.Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) deep.The major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria: these divisions are (in descending order of size) the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean (which is sometimes subsumed as the southern portions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans), and the Arctic Ocean (which is sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic).Smaller regions of the oceans are called seas, gulfs, bays and other names.In fact, water has a very slight blue color that can only be seen in large volumes.While the sky's reflection does contribute to the blue appearance of the surface, it is not the primary cause.Travel on the surface of the ocean through the use of boats dates back to prehistoric times, but only in modern times has extensive underwater travel become possible.The deepest point in the ocean is the Marianas Trench located in the Pacific Ocean near the Northern Mariana Islands.Oceans are divided into numerous regions depending on the physical and biological conditions of these areas.The photic zone covers the oceans from surface level to 200 meters down.This is the region where the photosynthesis most commonly occurs and therefore contains the largest biodiversity in the ocean.The pelagic part of the aphotic zone can be further divided into regions that succeed each other vertically.C, or between 700 or 1,000m and 2,000 or 4,000m.Lying along the top of the abyssal plain is the abyssalpelagic, whose lower boundary lies at about 6,000m.The final zone falls into the oceanic trenches, and is known as the hadalpelagic.The bathyal zone covers the continental slope and the rise down to about 4,000m.The pelagic zone can also be split into two subregions, the neritic zone and the oceanic zone.The neritic encompasses the water mass directly above the continental shelves, while the oceanic zone includes all the completely open water.In contrast, the littoral zone covers the region between low and high tide and represents the transitional area between marine and terrestrial conditions.Climate effects
One of the most dramatic forms of weather occurs over the oceans: tropical cyclones (also called "typhoons" and "hurricanes" depending upon where the system forms).Some of these are shrimp, fish, crabs and lobster.Ancient oceans include:
Bridge River Ocean, the ocean between the ancient Insular Islands and North America.Iapetus Ocean, the southern hemisphere ocean between Baltica and Avalonia.Rheic Ocean
Slide Mountain Ocean, the ocean between the ancient Intermontane Islands and North America.Tethys Ocean, the ocean between the ancient continents of Gondwana and Laurasia.Khanty Ocean, the ocean between Baltica and Siberia.Mirovia, the ocean that surrounded the Rodinia supercontinent.Tethys Ocean, the ocean between Gondwana and the Hunic terranes.African Ocean, the ocean that surrounded the Pannotia supercontinent.Superocean, the ocean that surrounds a global supercontinent.Ural Ocean, the ocean between Siberia and Baltica.Other icy moons may have once had internal oceans that have now frozen, such as Triton.Astronomers believe that Venus had liquid water and perhaps oceans in its very early history.Huygens space mission initially discovered only what appeared to be dry lakebeds and empty river channels, suggesting that Titan had lost what surface liquids it might have had.Titan made by Cassini has produced radar images that strongly suggest hydrocarbon lakes near the polar regions where it is colder.Titan is also thought likely to have a subterranean water ocean under the mix of ice and hydrocarbons that forms its outer crust.Beyond the solar system, Gliese 581 c is at the right distance from its sun for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.Since it does not transit its sun, there is no way to know if there is any water there.European mythology, imagining the world to be encircled by a great river.KJV),
inundating the world with the waters of the celestial ocean (see also deluge (mythology))."Maps of the whole world ocean.""Origins of the oceans and continents".UN Atlas of the Oceans.Look up Ocean in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Educational reference and data resource from NASA
Science taps into ocean secrets
Why is the ocean salty?All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.See Copyrights for details.Why is the Ocean Salty?Fill three glasses with water from the
kitchen faucet.Obviously, the ocean, in contrast to the water we use daily, contains unacceptable amounts
of dissolved chemicals; it is too salty for human consumption.HOW SALTY IS THE OCEAN?...How salty the ocean is, however, defies ordinary comprehension.And how does one explain ocean water's remarkably uniform chemical
composition?To these and related questions, scientists seek answers with full awareness
that little about the oceans is understood.Illustration: Sources of salts in the ocean.Earth to the clouds surrounding the cooling Earth.Sea water has been defined as a weak solution of almost everything.Some of the ocean's salts have been
dissolved from rocks and sediments below its floor.IF FRESH WATER FLOWS OUT TO THE SEA, WHY IS THE SEA STILL
SALTY?...Why aren't the oceans as
fresh as the river waters that empty into them?Throughout the world, rivers carry
an estimated 4 billion tons of dissolved salts to the ocean annually.In other words, the oceans today
probably have a balanced salt input and outgo.Past accumulations of dissolved and suspended solids in the sea do not explain
completely why the ocean is salty.This process is part of the continual exchange of water between the Earth
and the atmosphere that is called the hydrologic cycle.When the vapor collides with a colder
mass of air, it condenses (changes from a gas to a liquid) and falls to Earth as rain.The ocean, then, is not fresh like river water because of the huge
accumulation of salts by evaporation and the contribution of raw salts from the land.Scientists have studied the ocean's water for more than a century, but they still do not
have a complete understanding of its chemical composition.Elements may combine in various ways and form insoluble products (or precipitates)
that sink to the ocean floor.SALINITY AND ITS VARIABILITY...The salinity of ocean water varies.Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, where rates of
evaporation are very high.Partly landlocked seas or coastal inlets that receive substantial
runoff from precipitation falling on the land also may have low salinities.Water of the Puget Sound in the Tacoma, Wash.For example, the salinity of the ocean water
off Miami Beach, Fla.The water off
the coast of Miami Beach has a high salt content because it is undiluted sea water.Rivers carry to the sea more calcium than chloride, but the oceans nevertheless
contain about 46 times more chloride than calcium.Calcium and bicarbonate account for nearly 50 percent of the dissolved solids in
river water yet constitute less than 2 percent of the dissolved solids in ocean water.Sea water is not simply a solution of salts and dissolved gases
unaffected by living organisms in the sea.Sea life has a strong influence on the composition of sea water.However, some elements
in sea water are not affected to any apparent extent by plant or animal life.CONSTANT RATIOS OF MAJOR CONSTITUENTS...Although the composition of sea water differs from that of river water, the proportions of
the major constituents of sea water are almost constant throughout the world.The ocean is salty because of the gradual concentration of dissolved chemicals eroded from
the Earth's crust and washed into the sea.Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.Salinities are much less than average in coastal waters, in the polar seas, and near the
mouths of large rivers.Sea water not only is much saltier than river water but it also differs in the
proportion of the various salts.In open water the chemical composition of sea water is nearly
constant.Why is the Ocean
Salty?By Herbert Swenson) prepared by the U.Movie Sound Pages
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