Science Quiz 4 Oceans

What is the Earth known as?

The “Blue Planet”

What does the ocean store the majority of?

The earth’s moisture, energy, and solar heat

What changes take place in the ocean?

Chemical, biological, and physical changes

What is salinity?

Salinity is how much and the measure of how much salt is in water

What is the measurement used regarding salinity?

The measurement used is parts per thousand (ppt)

What is the average open ocean around the world?

35 parts per thousand

Briny water

50+ ppt

Saline water

30-50 ppt

Brackish water

0\.5-30 ppt

Fresh water

0-0.5 ppt

What does water evaporation cause?

The salinity to increase

Why is the Dead Sea called the Dead Sea? 

The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because animals and plants cannot flourish there because of the very high salinity

What is the ocean composed of?

96\.5% water, 2.5% salts, and 1% smaller amounts of other substances

What is the 3.5% that is not a water molecule made of?

Sodium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, sulfur, and other

What is the average depth of the ocean?

3,790 meters

What are the three major factors that make the deep ocean hard to inhabit?

Absence of light, low temperature, and extremely high pressure

The ocean is divided into two zones, what are they?

The photic zone and the aphotic zone

What is the photic zone?

The photic zone is an area of the ocean that extends from the surface to a depth of 200 m. There’s sunlight in this zone and it has enough sunlight for organisms to photosynthesize. Most marine organisms live in or visit the photic zone because of the phytoplankton

What is the aphotic zone?

The aphotic zone is an area of the ocean that is deeper than 200 m and it does not have enough light for photosynthesis, makes up a majority of the ocean, but has a small amount of its life

What is the intertidal zone?

The intertidal zone is the region closest to shore between the high and low tidal marks, and the land is sometimes exposed and sometimes underwater

What is the neritic zone?

The neritic zone is the zone from the low tide mark that slopes down to the edge of the continental shelf. It still has some sunlight

What is the oceanic zone?

The oceanic zone is the rest of the ocean after the neritic zone where sunlight reaches

What is the benthic zone?

The benthic zone is the rest of the ocean after the neritic zone where sunlight does not reach. It is located under the oceanic zone

What do ocean currents do?

They help regulate the Earth’s temperate/global climate by circulating hot and cold water. They transport warm water from the Equator towards the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics

Ocean circulation also affects ____

The temperature of the air

Extreme temperature changes..

don’t happen as much on land near water because water retains heat longer than land

What processes result in ocean currents?

Wind and convection

____ is the major mechanism of energy transfer in the oceans, atmosphere, and Earth's interior

Convection

What are convection currents?

Convection currents are currents that are caused by convection and distribute hot and cold water

What are surface currents?

Surface currents are currents caused by wind, the Coriolis effect, and energy from the Sun that distribute heat around the planet and can flow for thousands of kilometers and reach depths of hundreds of meters

What are global winds?

Global winds are winds that blow in the same direction all the time because of the unequal heating of and the rotation of the Earth

Water in the surface currents is…

pushed in the direction of the major wind belts

Trade winds:

East to west between the Equator and 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south

Westerlies:

West to east in the middle latitudes

Polar easterlies:

East to west between 50 degrees and 60 degrees north and south of the Equator and the North and South Pole

What causes most of Earth’s weather?

The large amount of stored heat and the transfer of energy in the ocean

The amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean water depends on..

how much CO2 is in the atmosphere and the temperature of the water

When Carbon Dioxide forms carbonic acid after dissolving in the ocean..

bicarbonate, carbonate, and hydrogen ions are created

Marine organisms extract the calcium and carbonate ions from the water and…

use them to make shells

A significant amount of atmospheric CO2 is…

naturally absorbed by the oceans

Oceans are…

naturally alkaline and have a pH of around 8.2

The absorption of CO2 can cause oceans to…

become too acidic, meaning there is less carbonate available, resulting in animals not having enough carbonate to build their skeletons and shells and causing the skeletons and shells to be dissolved by the undersaturated seawater

Examples of oceanic hazards.

storm surges, tsunamis, and biohazards

What are some results of oceanic hazards?

long-term coastal erosion, damage to coastal landscape and marine ecosystems, damaged coral reefs, loss of livelihood for fishermen 

Ocean currents include any —- of water in the ocean that moves in the —- ———.

Movement, same direction

What does the Coriolis effect do?

It causes the deflection of the winds and currents in the Northern Hemisphere to the right and the Southern Hemisphere to the left

Because of the deflection, the major currents of the Earth flow in what direction? 

Clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and Counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere

What are gyres?

Gyres are circular movements of the ocean caused by global wind circulation

What are the fives major gyres?

The North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Indian Ocean Gyres.

What is upwelling?

Upwelling is when deep, colder, nutrient-rich water is circulated to the surface for plants and animals to feed on. It is caused by the coastal movement of seawater from the Coriolis effect.

What is bathymetry?

The study of the topography of the deep ocean floor

What is the continental margin?

The ocean crust that runs along the edge of all the continents

What is the continental shelf?

An extension of the continental plate into the water which slopes at a small angle towards the bottom of the main ocean floor

Continental slope

A sloping drop-off located after the continental shelf

What are submarine canyons?

Very deep incisions or valleys on the continental shelf and continental slope that are cut out by turbidity currents

What are turbidity currents?

Very strong currents that carry lots of sediment and deposit that sediment at the base of passive continental margins. Said sediment build up at the ocean floor as continental rise

What is the decrease in visibility caused by sediment or organic particles called?

Turbidity

What are passive continental margins?

Where the plates of the Earth do not crash into each other at the border of continental and oceanic crusts

What are active continental margins?

Places where the continental and oceanic crust crash into each other. This can result in the oceanic crust diving underneath the continental crust, forming a deep ocean trench.

What is the deepest trench in the world?

The Marianas Trench

The deepest part of the Marianas Trench is known as…

Challenger Deep

What is are the abyssal plains?

The flattest part of the ocean and sometimes found next to the continental rise or deep-sea trench. They are smooth, 5-6 km deep, and have lots of sediment deposits on top of basaltic oceanic crust.

Seamounts

Underwater volcanic hot spots that do not reach the oceans surface, but has lots of biological activity

Guyots

Seamounts that have reached sea level, but are flat on the top because of erosion, and be found as flat-topped “mountains” underwater.

Hydrothermal vents

Cracks of fissures in the Earth’s crust usually found along hot spots, mid-ocean ridges, or other places in the ocean basin

Smokers

Smokers than can emit sulfides and materials contains sulfur, appearing black in color, or smokers that emit carbon dioxide and light-colored minerals, appearing white in color. They contain many strange organisms found nowhere else on Earth.

Mid-ocean ridges

Underwater mountain ranges full of volcanic and earthquake activity that are found in segments all over the ocean basins

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs from the north of Iceland down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is the main mid-ocean ridge on Earth

Rift valleys

Found in the middle of where two plates are pulling apart from each other

What are the three salt water ecosystems?

Estuaries, salt marshes, mangrove forest, coral reefs, open ocean, and deep sea ocean

Estuaries

Estuaries is where the river meets the sea and is where fresh and saltwater mix. They are nursery grounds for many species

What is the largest estuary in the US?

The Chesapeake Bay

What rivers feed into the Chesapeake Bay?

Potomac-Shenandoah, Rappahannock, York, and James rivers

Salt Marshes

Areas of different grasses that can handle changing tidal flows and changing salinity. Filled with peat and has a rotten egg smell. Very spongy and muddy and provide nursery grounds.

Peat

Substance made from decomposing plant matter and holds water and soil

Mangrove

The one type of tree that can live in saltwater; there are about 80 species of this tree worldwide

Mangrove forest

Located in the tropics or subtropical areas, and can be determined by the salinity of the water and tangled prop roots, which help the trees deal with tidal change and keeping the coastline together during storms. These roots also provide marline life protection from predators

Coral reefs

Coral reefs are made up of millions of tiny animals called polyps and form around the shoreline in tropical waters and subtropics between 30 north and south latitude. They are estimated to be worth between 30 and $172 billion dollars in tourism medicine and other industries. They also require specific conditions to live.

How are coral reefs formed?

Free swimming medusae land on solid structures, then build their homes in tropical waters. The next stage is the polyp stage, which comes after Medusae land on other corals, and begin to add to rebuild new reefs. 

coral polyps…

Are colonial but act as a single organism, and build their skeletal structures out of calcium carbonate or limestone

How much ocean life depends on coral reefs?

About a fourth of all ocean life

Zooxanthellae

single-celled algae that provide oxygen to the coral polyps

What do organisms live in a symbiotic relationship?

Zooxanthellae and coral polyps

How does this symbiotic relationship between coral polyps and zooxanthellae work?

zooxanthellae live inside the digestive tract of the coral polyps and as much as 90% of the food from zooxanthellae are used by coral polyps. The coral provides protection, nutrients, and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, while the zooxanthellae provides oxygen and food.

How many species of coral are there?

About 6000

Most corals grow the rate of ___ per year

One and a half inches

What is the only natural living feature that can be seen from space and is one of the seven wonders of the world?

The Great Barrier Reef

Very large corals grow…

0\.1-0.4 inches per year

Most corals grow…

0\.5 inches per year

Branching corals grow…

4-8 inches per year, but break off easily if too big

Whole coral reefs grow about…

0\.2 inches per year

The largest animal is the..

Blue whale, which is bigger than dinosaurs and eat really tiny shrimp-like animals called krill

What in the open oceans is an important source of atmospheric oxygen?

Marine life

How much of the Earth’s oxygen comes from the ocean?

At least half

How much oxygen does the bacteria Prochlorococcus produce?

up to 20% of the oxygen in the Earth’s entire biosphere

Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria 

thought to be the most abundant photosynthetic organisms on Earth, playing an important role in regulating levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere. They are found in the tropical and subtropical oceans of the world

How many pounds of fish and shellfish are caught anually?

200 billion

Today fisheries provide about…

16% of the total world's protein

What is the mineral that is taken out of the ocean the most?

Salt

What is the only metal that is directly extracted from the ocean?

Magnesium