MAF100 Lecture Notes: Ocean Reference Frames, Marine Ecosystems, Governance, and Fisheries

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering ocean physical characteristics, reference frames, marine ecosystems, international maritime governance, and sustainable fisheries management based on MAF100 course materials.

Reference frame

A way of looking at and understanding the world; each frame highlights some things and overlooks others.

Physical/material reference frame

A perspective that focuses on physical conditions, organisms, and processes, such as currents, temperature, and fish populations.

Relational reference frame

A perspective that focuses on relationships, experiences, culture, history, identity, and meaning.

Technocratic reference frame

A perspective that focuses on managing activities through expert knowledge, information, laws, and rules.

Active continental margin

A continental edge located at a plate boundary, often characterized by earthquakes or volcanic activity.

Passive continental margin

A continental edge located away from an active plate boundary.

Divergent plate boundary

A boundary where tectonic plates move apart, allowing new crust to form at spreading centers such as mid-ocean ridges.

Convergent plate boundary

A boundary where tectonic plates move together, potentially destroying oceanic crust through subduction.

Transform plate boundary

A boundary where tectonic plates slide past one another.

Subduction

The geological process where one tectonic plate sinks beneath another into the mantle.

Bathymetry

The measurement and study of the shape and depth of the seafloor.

Continental shelf

The relatively shallow, gently sloping submerged edge of a continent.

Continental slope

The steeper descent leading from the edge of the continental shelf toward the deep ocean.

Abyssal plain

A broad, relatively flat region of the deep seafloor.

Seamount

An underwater mountain rising from the ocean floor, usually of volcanic origin.

Gyre

A large system of circulating ocean currents.

Sea surface

A dynamic boundary layer where the ocean and atmosphere exchange heat, gases, and materials.

Epipelagic zone

The ocean depth zone from $0\text{–}200\text{ meters}$; sunlit surface water where most photosynthesis occurs.

Mesopelagic zone

The ocean depth zone from $200\text{–}1{,}000\text{ meters}$, known as the twilight zone due to its limited light.

Bathypelagic zone (course's simplified scheme)

The ocean depth zone below $1{,}000\text{ meters}$, characterized by an absence of surface sunlight, cold water, and limited food.

Thermocline

A distinct water layer in the ocean where temperature changes rapidly with depth.

Relationality

The concept that no person or thing exists in isolation; everything exists within relationships.

Black Atlantic

The connected histories and cultures of Black communities across the Atlantic, shaped by slavery, migration, diaspora, and cultural exchange.

Diaspora

A population dispersed from an ancestral homeland while maintaining enduring connections and identities.

Charismatic megafauna

Large animal species, such as whales and polar bears, that attract widespread public interest and conservation support.

Anthropogenic

Originating from or caused by human activity.

Ecosystem

A community of living organisms and their physical environment interacting with and shaping one another.

Primary productivity

The rate at which primary producers synthesize organic matter or biomass.

Phytoplankton

Drifting photosynthetic organisms that form a major foundation of marine food webs.

Zooplankton

Drifting animals and other non-photosynthetic consumers that feed on organisms or organic material.

Upwelling

The ocean process that transports nutrient-rich deep water upward into the sunlit surface layer, enhancing productivity.

Ecosystem functions and processes

The baseline activities that keep ecosystems operating, such as nutrient cycling, photosynthesis, decomposition, and predation.

Ecosystem services

The tangible and intangible benefits people receive from ecosystems, such as food, coastal protection, carbon storage, and recreation.

Resilience

A system's capacity to absorb disturbances and change while still maintaining its fundamental identity and functioning.

Stressor

A factor that impairs an ecosystem's functioning or productivity, such as pollution, warming, or excessive harvesting.

Whale fall

A whale carcass that sinks to the seafloor, providing an exceptionally concentrated food source for deep-sea communities.

Keystone species

A species that exerts an unusually large influence on its ecosystem relative to its abundance.

Pelagic

Relating to open water areas of the ocean rather than the seafloor or nearshore zones.

Littoral

Relating to the shore or nearshore coastal environment.

Cryosphere

The frozen or ice-dominated portions of the Earth system.

Anadromous fish

Fish species that spend most of their lives in the sea and migrate into freshwater to reproduce, such as many salmon.

Socio-ecological system

An integrated system in which human communities and biophysical processes continuously interact and shape one another.

State

A centralized political organization and government exercising sovereignty over a defined population and territory.

Nation

A community of people sharing a common identity, often based on shared culture, language, or history.

Sovereignty

Supreme authority within a bounded territory combined with independence in external relations.

Internal sovereignty

A state's capability to exercise authority, enforce legal codes, and maintain governmental control within its borders.

External sovereignty

Diplomatic recognition of a state's authority by other states and its formal independence in international relations.

Anarchic international system

A global political structure characterized by the absence of a central world government overarching sovereign states.

UNCLOS

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; a comprehensive international legal framework establishing rights, jurisdiction, resource use, and environmental protection across the oceans.

Territorial sea

A coastal zone extending up to $12\text{ nautical miles}$ from the baseline where coastal-state sovereignty applies, subject to rights like innocent passage.

EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone)

An area extending beyond the territorial sea up to $200\text{ nautical miles}$ from the baseline, granting coastal states sovereign rights over natural resources and specific jurisdictions.

High seas

Water columns of the ocean located beyond Exclusive Economic Zones, open to all nations and governed by international law.

The Area

The seabed, ocean floor, and subsoil situated beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

ISA (International Seabed Authority)

An autonomous international organization established to organize and regulate mineral-related activities and protect the marine environment in the Area.

Common heritage of humankind

The international principle stipulating that the Area and its mineral resources are held in trust and managed for the benefit of humanity as a whole.

Tragedy of the commons

An economic scenario where individuals independently exploit a shared open-access resource for personal gain, leading to resource depletion without effective collective rules.

SDG 14

The Sustainable Development Goal titled 'Life Below Water', dedicated to conserving and sustainably using oceans, seas, and marine resources.

Marine resource

Any physical entity or biological organism found within the ocean environment that possesses utility for human societies.

Commodity

An interchangeable commercial good produced for sale and exchange in a market.

Commodification

The transformation of goods, services, ideas, or entities into marketable commodities that can be bought and sold.

Renewable resource

A natural resource capable of naturally replenishing itself over time through reproduction or cyclic ecological processes on human timescales.

Sink resource

The functional capacity of the ocean to receive, process, and absorb discarded matter and energy, such as carbon dioxide, thermal energy, and wastes.

Ocean acidification

The ongoing decrease in the pH of seawater primarily caused by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Sustainability

Practices that meet present societal needs without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their own needs.

Lifeways

The customs, traditional subsistence practices, indigenous knowledge systems, and spiritual relationships that define a community's daily existence.

Fish stock

A discrete biological subpopulation of a fish species managed and assessed as a single unit.

Biomass

The total aggregated weight or quantity of living organisms within an identified stock or population.

Overfished

The population status of a fish stock when its overall biomass drops below a prescribed conservation management threshold.

Overfishing

The practice of harvesting fish at a rate of fishing mortality that exceeds sustainable replacement limits.

Maximum sustainable yield

The highest average annual catch level that can be continuously harvested from a fish stock under existing environmental conditions without inducing depletion.

Magnuson–Stevens Act

The primary federal statute enacted in $1976$ governing marine fisheries management in U.S. waters to eliminate overfishing and rebuild depleted stocks.

RFMC

Regional Fishery Management Council; a statutory U.S. regional council established to manage domestic fishery resources.

RFMO

Regional Fisheries Management Organization; an international intergovernmental treaty body that coordinates multilateral conservation and fisheries management.

Bycatch

Non-target marine organisms and wildlife captured unintentionally during commercial fishing operations targeting specific species.

Sustainable seafood certification

A voluntary market-based verification program evaluating fisheries against ecological criteria to award consumer eco-labels.

Greenwashing

The practice of conveying false, unsubstantiated, or exaggerated claims regarding the environmental credentials of a company or product.

Bluewashing (course meaning)

Making deceptive, unsubstantiated, or misleading claims about the sustainability of marine resource management or seafood harvesting.