Title: Life in the Ocean
By: James W. Nybakken and Steven K. Webster
- 71 percent of its surface is covered with ocean.
- Researchers have studied less than 10 percent of the ocean and, because of the difficulty of getting safely to the bottom, have explored no more than 1 percent of the deep ocean floor.
-Seawater is about 800 times as dense as air and is much more viscous.
-Of the organisms that live in the ocean, however, only 250,000 species have been identified; total estimates run closer to 400,000 to 450,000.
-Certain areas of the Pacific ocean an oxygen minimum zone that occurs between 500 and 1,000 meters below the surface. Only a few organisms are able to survive in this type of poor oxygen environments.
- In the sea, oxygen enters only at or near the surface. And because most of the water found in the deep ocean originated at the surface in the coldest parts of the world, it sank carrying large amounts of dissolved oxygen.
Summary:
The ocean is the biggest thing in this world that we yet have explored. 71 percent of this world is covered with the oceans. We only found 250,000 species and that's with only 10 percent of the ocean that researcher's studied. They're many species and things yet to be discovered. Some experts believes that between one million and 10 million benthic species have yet to be discovered. The ocean does not have much plant life, because the ocean doesn't have concentrations of critical nutrients it is extremely lower then what we have on land. Which led to the ocean only supporting only a small fraction of what can be grown on reasonably productive land.
Reflection:
I think it is so incredible that scientists has only discovered 10 percent of that ocean and that 70 percent of the world is the ocean. I find it amazing that they're many undiscovered species that we may never find but I do hope we have the opportunity to have more advanced technology to help discover more of the deep ocean that we yet to discover. We have only identified around 250,000 species but they may be 100,000 more species we have not identified yet. That is just amazing and scary at the same time.