Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Exploring oceans - Coggle Diagram
Exploring oceans
-
Ocean nutrients
Trophic
This is the process of nourishing and is used to represent nutirents in food webs with trophic levels.
-
Light in the oceans
-
-
Midnight/aphotic zone
-
Despite a lack of sunlight there are areas of intense life found around hydrothermal vents and cold seeps due to the process of chemosynthesis (using chemicals instead of sunlight to produce energy).
Hydrothermal vents are very hot (over 350oc) mineral-laden cracks in the crust which form what are effectively underwater volcanoes (lava is not released).
Cold seeps are places on the sea floor where chemicals such as methane and hydrogen sulfide leak to the surface and are capable of sustaining large amounts of biodiverse life.
-
-
-
-
Origins of the oceans
When the first volcanos began erupting this released water vapour into the atmoshpere which then led to the creation of clouds. As global tempretures droped this water vapour fell as precipitation into the main depression areas.
This heavy rainfall only made up 50% of the oceans and the rest was brought to Earth by commits hitting the Earth.
-
Ocean currents
Ocean convayor system
Surface currents
-
These are warm ocean currents that are moving away from the tropics towards the high lattitude seas.
They play an important role in regulating global climate by moving warm water around, this can best be seen in Northern Europe where because of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream it is warmer then it should be (Northern Europe should have a climate similar to Canada).
-
-
-
Climate change is leading to sea water becoming fresher (less saline) and this could change the patterns of downward movement in ocean currents and stop the movement of warm such as the North Atlantic Gulf Stream.