Ocean and Sea Life

Water, the Ocean, and Sea Life

Lets start with Water:

One oxygen atom and 2 hydrogen atoms join together to make a molecule of water. Oxygen has 8 protons, 8 electrons, and 8 neutrons, has a weight of 16 and makes up 8/9ths of the weight of water. Oxygen makes up 1/5th of the volume of our atmosphere. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe, has the lightest weight of 1, and is the simplest composition for an atom.

The simplest atom is the force of unimaginable magnitude in comparison to size. Hydrogen has the lightest weight of 1, the greatest specific heat, and is the most sociable element. Hydrogen loves carbon and oxygen! We have two elements that are gases at all temperatures on earth that combine to produce the only inorganic liquid on earth. It is the bearer of life and begets all organic liquids.

Water is an inorganic compound and the molecule has the shape of Mickey Mouse. It is called “The Mickey Mouse Molecule”. It is the most sociable element, next to hydrogen, and the most abundant. Water is the only element on earth present in all three states: solid, liquid, and gas (water, ice, fog). Ice is the strangest of all solids because water expands when it freezes and everything else contrasts except bismuth. There are about 7 kinds of ice that depend upon pressure to form. As pressure increases, the freezing point is lowered. Ask students what other liquids do we find naturally occurring (blood, honey, milk, tree sap, nectar, oil, mercury, tears, perspiration).

Earth is called “The Blue Planet” or “The Water Planet”. Water is the main composition of all living things. Its properties are strange, rare, and unique and it blankets 3/4ths of the surface of the earth. Life wilts and shrivels up without it!

97% of all the water in the world is in the oceans and is salty.
2% of water is ice
1% of water is “fresh” water and available to drink and use.
42% of fresh water goes for agriculture
39% to power and electric
11% home and office
8% manufacturing, and mining
At 32 degrees water freezes and forms a hexagonal crystal having six sides as topaz and quartz crystals. When frozen water floats on itself. Sound travels four times faster in water than in air. Water can dissolve or erode away a rock. Water takes up space as we see in the forms of oceans bigger than continents, icebergs as big as cities and clouds as big as the sky. Rain, snow, hail, fog, dew, steam, hot springs, geysers, rivers, ponds, puddles, and streams are all water. Bodies of water may vary in color according to the content.

We are nothing without water! We can only go about 3 days without any water. Grains, seeds, and nuts can live the longest without water because they have water sealed inside. It has an enormous power to absorb and store heat Water is the universal solvent and always the bearer of other substances.

Water is colorless, odorless, and tasteless and has weight, force, and pressure. We see its force in tidal waves, hurricanes, and floods. We know the pressure of water from its weight every time we carry a gallon of water (or milk). We love the many flavors of water to drink!

Water is the carver of the surface of the earth. . Heat from our sun drives the water cycle that carves the face of the earth. The Grange Canyon is the most significant carving by water.

Bodies of water:

Dead Sea in Palestine is the lowest body of water at 1300 feet below sea level.
Lake Titicaca is the highest body of water in the Andes Mts.
Red Sea has no rivers of any size and is surrounded by desserts.
Caspian Sea is the largest body of water with no outlet and covers 163,800 sq. miles.
Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest at 5,712 feet deep.
Lake Superior is the largest body of water covering a 31,820 sq. mile area.
The Nile is the longest river traveling 4,000 miles.
The Mississippi runs 3900 miles as does The Amazon but the Amazon is broader and carries more water.
The water table is the line below which the ground is saturated. Water flows downhill but pressure causes it to rise. Pressure underground causes underground water to form geysers, artesian wells, and hot springs but most water leaves the ground through springs or rivers.

The Oceans

The ocean is home for the majority of life. It is life’s primeval sea and it moderates climates and temperatures. Water has an enormous power to absorb and store heat. All life is conditioned by water.

Ocean water is salty. Salt is produced by evaporation of seawater or brine from other sources, such as brine wells and salt lakes, and by mining rock salt, called halite. Salt is the solid crystal halite and, a crystalline mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride, NaCl. It is essential for animal life in small quantities but is harmful to animals and plants in excess. It had been used in the past to preserve food, as money, and it is a nucleus for ice crystals or raindrops. It is created from water running off of the land. Salt water can be colder than ice or it can be 500 degrees hot near thermal vents.

Eighty percent of our oceans surface is in the southern hemisphere. The surface of the ocean is not flat but has but it bulges over mountains and dips over trenches below. The ocean bottom is mostly sand, silt, and mud. Mountain ranges and plateaus rise from the ocean floor. We have been able to map the ocean floor using sound waves. Europe and N. America move 1 inch further away from each other in a year. The Pacific Ocean is growing smaller, and the Red Sea is growing larger.

There are three segments to the ocean floor:

1. Shelf to 600 feet
2. Slope to 12,000 feet ( at the base is the continental rise)
3. The floor or the deep ocean
Ocean currents are like rivers flowing in the ocean. Ocean currents have an effect on climate and weather. The ocean itself doesn’t have a climate as such. Tides, currents, waves, temperature, salt, light, and depth affect life in the ocean. The temperature in the ocean varies little but 1-10 degrees. On land the temperature can vary from 40 to 100 degrees.

The Pacific Ocean – the largest and deepest ocean (14,000 feet) with a “Pacific Ring of Fire” (volcanoes) below. It has twice the water of the Atlantic. There are two gyres (two different surface currents circling) in the Pacific Ocean. Other oceans only have 0ne surface current.

The Atlantic Ocean – has an average depth of 11,000 feet. A ridge (The Mid-Atlantic Ridge) curves like a snake through the Atlantic Ocean. The ridge has a huge trench and is the birthplace of the floor of the Atlantic. At fracture zones earthquakes and volcanoes are common. The Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest at 30,000 feet deep. In the mid-North Atlantic is the Sargasso Sea where eels meet manatees, sea turtles, whales, and sharks.

The Arctic Ocean has an average depth of 3,000 feet. It is small, cold and like a shallow bowl. Arctic summers are always day and winters dark. In 1906 a ship took 3 years to cross the Arctic looking for a shorted path to the new world.

The Gulf Stream current is 50 miles wide, flows warm at 5 miles an hour. Deepwater currents are moving masses of cold water. Every ten years the ocean currents shift for two years. The water increases temperature and sea levels rise 20 inches. The cause is unknown.

In the two hemispheres of the earth, water moves circling in opposite directions. In the Northern Hemisphere it circles clockwise. In the southern it circles counterclockwise.

Ocean water swells crash into waves that wash up on the beach then roll back underneath. They can be gentle and calm or violent and destructive. Waves may be caused by wind, the upheaval of the ocean bottom, an earthquake, or a submarine. Waves are seldom more than 25 feet high but in storm may reach 60 feet. The motion of the wave can be circular or elliptical. A wave can have a spray that reaches 200 feet and the force of a wave can reach 3 tons per square foot. A tsunami is a tidal wall 100 feet tall usually caused from an earthquake.

Ocean tides rise and fall upon the shore. The earth’s spin creates traveling bulges and our moon pulls the along. There may be one or two high and low tides. The moon’s gravitational pull, supplemented by the sun, affects the tides of the oceans on earth. The average tide is 2 ½ feet high. Inland seas for all purposes are tideless. Vast energy is exerted by tides. This movement is a necessary condition for life. Stagnation is the forerunner of death.

Ocean Levels:

1. Sunlit – to 650 feet
2. Twilight – to 3000 feet –Life feeds on droppings from above.
3. Midnight Zone – to 13,000 feet – animals have developed bioluminescence.
4. Abyss to 20,000 feet
5. Hadal Zone – 20,000 plus
Ocean Organisms swim, float, attach themselves and become stationary, crawl, hitchhike, bore holes,

There are 3 groups of life in the ocean.:

1. Plankton – All forms that drift with the currents.
2. Nekton – Free swimming organisms
3. Benthos – those attached to or that crawl on the sea floor

In the ocean we find animals that:

1. Can generate 220 volts
2. Regenerate parts of their body
3. Squirt ink
4. Shoot acid
5. Multiply by mitosis
6. Have several rows of teeth
7. Have eight arms
8. Produce light
9. Dress like a lion
10. Change colors and patterns
11. Change sexes
12. Have tentacles with shooting barbs that sting
13. Animals that are stationary (attached to something)
Ocean animal facts:

1. The largest fish (whale shark)
2. The largest animal is the blue whale. The blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, is the largest known animal ever to have lived on sea or land. Individuals can reach more than 110 feet and weigh nearly 200 tons
3. The largest bird is a sea bird – the albatross with a wingspan up to 12 feet.
4. The Tern is a small seabird that flies the farthest – 25,000 miles from pole to pole.
5. Some animals in the ocean look very different at different stages of life (polyps, medusa, jellyfish)
6. Some animals make sounds (the whales song, drumming fish, or squeaking toadfish)
7. Most ocean animals breathe water but the lungfish can breathe on land or water.
8. A flying fish can glide 150 feet.
9. The rare dugong related to the manatee lives in the Indian Ocean.
10. The giant squid is 65 feet long.
11. Chemosynthetic bacteria live at hydrothermal vents
12. The cuttlefish is an invertebrate with no brain to speak of and invented jet propulsion.
13. The oarfish, Regalecus glesne, is the longest bony fish in the world. With its snakelike body sporting a magnificent red fin along its 50-foot length, horse like face and blue gills, it accounts for many sea-serpent sightings.
14. Green turtles can migrate more than 1,400 miles to lay their eggs
15. Blue fin tuna are among the largest and fastest marine fish.
16. Penguins “fly” underwater at up to 25 miles per hour
17. Horseshoe crabs have existed in essentially the same form for the past 135 million years.
18. A scallop has thirty-five eyes, all of which are blue
19. The giant squid, once considered a myth, is the largest creature without a backbone. It grows up to fifty-five feet across and weighs up to 5,000 pounds.
Giant squid have the largest eyes. Their eyes are sixteen times wider than human eyes, or more than a foot in diameter.
20. Sea horses are probably best known for their roles as father, as one of the
only species of animal where the male becomes pregnant and gives birth.
Female sea horses insert their eggs into the male’s pouch where they are
fertilized and held until they hatch
21. An octopus has 3 hearts and its blood is light blue. They are completely deaf.
22. The octopus and starfish can grow new limbs.
23. The leatherback turtle is the largest sea turtle at 6.5 feet long and 1500lbs.
24. The box jellyfish kills more people each year than any other sea animal. Its sting can kill in 3 minutes.
25. Crabs teeth are in their stomach.
26. The most primitive fish-like animals are those with sucking mouths, such as lampreys and hagfishes, whose evolution stopped short of the development of biting jaws.
27. The smallest fish is the tiny goby, an inhabitant of fresh-to-brackish-water lakes in Luzon, Philippines. It seldom is longer than a half inch at adulthood.
Out of the 33 phyla or groups of animals, one is found only on land, 16 are found only in water, and 16 found on land and in the ocean. Of the 7 species of sea turtles, 5 are endangered.

Plants in the ocean are seaweeds attached to the ocean floor like kelp. Some are tiny green plants that swim around and many forms of sea life feed on ocean meadows of life called plankton (microscopic plants and animals). The most familiar are diatoms. Most continents and islands are fringed with seaweed