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Intro to Marine Science Exam
Questions and Answers
viscosity - Answer - a measure of a fluid's resistance to flow that describes the internal friction of a moving fluid source - Answer - the flux into a geochemical reservoir, such as the addition of elements to seawater by rivers or by seafloor hydrothermal processes sink - Answer - the flux out of a geochemical reservoir, such as the removal of salts from seawater by mineral precipitation salinity - Answer - the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water; usually expressed in grams per kilogram or parts per thousand by weight steady-state - Answer - the case where a system or process does not change in time; as used here, it refers to a situation where the oceans salt composition is unchanging because inputs are balanced by outputs conservative elements - Answer - ions with high and uniform concentrations that occur in constant proportion to each other in the ocean through time (Na+, Cl-, K+, Mg2+, and SO4^2-) nonconservative elements - Answer - elements whose proportions in seawater vary in space and time; usually because they are involved in biological or chemical processes and have short residence times (NO3-, PO4^2-, Si, Fe, and Se) Residence Time - Answer - Amount of element in ocean/Rate at which it is delivered (or removed) Chlorine (Cl-) - Answer - single most abundant ion in the ocean Principle of Constant Proportions - Answer - states the proportions of major conservative elements remain nearly constant with respect to each other even though total salinity may change from place to place salinometer - Answer - an instrument designed to measure the salinity, or dissolved salt content, of a solution; by measuring conductivity
temperature-salinity diagram - Answer - graphical tool that plots salinity on the x axis and temperature on the y axis isopycnals - Answer - a line connecting points of equal density and often used analogously to contour lines in graphical representations of temperature and salinity data stable - Answer - refers to water column where density increases with water depth unstable - Answer - a situation that occurs when denser water is introduced on top of less dense water, which causes water to move vertically and result in mixing overturning - Answer - vertical movement that occurs when denser water sinks and displaces the less dense water beneath, which in turn will rise to the surface thermocline - Answer - where temperature changes rapidly with depth halocline - Answer - a depth interval in the ocean where salinity changes rapidly with depth pycnocline - Answer - layer where water density increases rapidly with depth mixed layer - Answer - upper surface layer of the ocean in which temperature and salinity are relatively constant with depth deep layer - Answer - portion of the ocean below the pycnocline where there is little additional change of density with increasing depth isothermal - Answer - occurring at constant temperature; water column is described as this in polar regions/latitudes nutrients - Answer - chemicals that are essential to life; provide nourishment for growth or metabolism in primary producers nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicon - Answer - major nutrients in the sea that govern the distribution of life limiting nutrients - Answer - an element essential to a species but found in a concentration low enough to be a ____________ factor on the population; its abundance or lack thereof controls the maximum population of the species primary producers - Answer - organisms in an ecosystem that produce biomass from inorganic compounds (autotrophs- use light or chemical energy) photosynthesis - Answer - the process by which a green plant turns water and carbon dioxide into food when the plant is exposed to light
ocean acidification - Answer - the reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time, caused primarily by uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere electromagnetic radiation - Answer - the radiant energy released by certain electromagnetic processes; familiar forms include visible light, radio waves, infrared light, and X-rays scattering - Answer - the deflection from a straight path of light or other energy waves passing through an imperfect medium (such as water filled with particles) absorption - Answer - process by which a substance takes in energy when light or sound waves are encountered, as opposed to reflecting the energy attenuation - Answer - decrease in light intensity with depth euphotic zone - Answer - the upper layer of a body of water delineated by the depth to which enough sunlight can penetrate to permit photosynthesis disphotic zone - Answer - "twilight zone"; depth where light is present but at levels too low for photosynthesis aphasic zone - Answer - "midnight zone"; deepest portion of a lake or ocean where there is little or no sunlight sound shadow zones - Answer - an area through which sound waves fail to propagate SOFAR channel - Answer - deep sound channel; a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which the speed of sound is at its minimum and low frequency sounds can propagate long distances Heard Island Feasibility Test (HIST) - Answer - tested the engineering of acoustic sources and receivers for trans-global ranges, to study the nature of acoustic signals recorded at great distances from their source, and as a preliminary test of using long- range acoustics for the purposes of measuring global oceanic climate change acoustic thermometry - Answer - a technique for measuring the temperature of ocean water by measuring how long it takes sound to travel through it speed of sound in seawater - Answer - ~ 1500 m/s wind-driven circulation - Answer - the more vigorous component of ocean circulation forced by wind stress on the sea surface, inducing a momentum exchange thermohaline circulation - Answer - the portion of the large scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes
solar constant - Answer - the average rate at which radiant energy is received from the Sun by the Earth thermal equilibrium - Answer - a stable situation in which incoming heat energy from the Sun is balanced by the total heat radiating outwards into space, leading to approximately constant temperatures greenhouse gases - Answer - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor; absorb infrared radiation greenhouse effect - Answer - the trapping of the sun's warmth in a planet's lower atmosphere due to the greater transparency of the atmosphere to visible shortwave radiation from the Sun than to longwave infrared radiation emitted from the Earth's surface meridional circulation - Answer - a general pattern of air or water flow from North to South, or from South to North, along the Earth's longitude lines (perpendicular to a zonal flow) Coriolis Effect - Answer - the apparent deflection of a moving object from its initial course when its speed and direction are measured in reference to the surface of the rotating Earth. On Earth, the object is deflected to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere Hadley cells - Answer - air at equator rises and moves poleward but sinks at 30 degrees N and S and then moves back towards the equator tradewinds - Answer - the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics, blowing mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere to the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere Mid-latitude cells - Answer - Ferrel cells; average motion of air in the mid-latitudes, characterized by sinking air near 30 degrees and rising air farther poleward at about 60 degrees; creates westerly surface winds westerlies - Answer - the prevailing winds from the west to the east in middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude Polar cells - Answer - smallest and weakest of the meridional atmospheric cells which extend from between 60 and 70 N and S to the poles; air sinks over the highest latitudes and flows out towards the lower latitudes at the surface polar easterlies - Answer - the dry, cold prevailing winds that blow from the high pressure areas of the polar highs at the North and South poles towards low pressure areas between 60 and 70 degrees latitude
convergence zone - Answer - a location where ocean currents meet, characteristically marked by downwelling of water downwelling - Answer - the downward movement of surface waters caused by the convergence of water masses or by an increase in density Sargasso Sea - Answer - a calm area in the western North Atlantic gyre where there is an abundance of floating seaweed of the genus Sargassum Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Answer - a popular name for concentrations of marine debris that have accumulated in the Subtropical North Pacific Gyre because of convergence and circulation eddy - Answer - a circular movement of water, counter to a main current, causing a small vortex mesoscale eddies - Answer - rotating structures of water with radial scales on the order of 100 kilometers that play a key role in the transport and mixing of momentum and tracers across the ocean; "weather of the ocean" warm-core eddies - Answer - masses of warm water turning in colder ocean waters cold-core eddies - Answer - masses of cold water turning in warmer waters Western Pacific Warm Pool - Answer - a term used for a body of water with temperatures greater than about 28.5 degrees C that spans the western waters of the equatorial Pacific to the eastern Indian Ocean; holds the warmest sea waters in the world El Nino Southern Oscillation - Answer - trade winds revise or weaken; warm phase of change in atmospheric pressure and wind direction; a systematic shift in atmospheric pressure, sea-surface temperature, and ocean circulation in the tropical Pacific Ocean La Nina - Answer - "Normal" year, but with cold extreme; easterly trade winds and ocean currents pool warm water in the western Pacific, allowing upwelling of nutrient rich water off the West coast of South America Southern Oscillation Index - Answer - air pressure differential between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia at sea level; negative during El Nino and positive during La Nina water-mass - Answer - a large body of sea water that is distinguishable by its characteristic temperature and salinity range
Antarctic Intermediate Water - Answer - a cold, relatively low salinity water mass found mostly at intermediate depth in the Southern Ocean that is formed at the ocean surface in the Antarctic Convergence zone North Atlantic Deep Water - Answer - an important deep water-mass formed in the North Atlantic that is relatively warm and saline Antarctic Bottom Water - Answer - a bottom water-mass formed in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica with temperatures ranging from - 0.8 to 2 degrees C and salinities from 34.6 to 34.7 ppt; densest water in the ocean Great Ocean Conveyor Belt - Answer - a unifying concept that connects the ocean's surface and thermohaline circulation regimes, transporting heat and salt on a planetary scale biotic - Answer - relating to, or resulting from living things; especially in their ecological relations abiotic - Answer - not associated with or derived from living organisms; examples are sunlight and temperature compensation depth - Answer - depth at which light intensity is just sufficient to bring about a balance between the oxygen produced and that consumed by algae bioluminescence - Answer - biochemical emission of light by living organisms such as fireflies and deep-sea fishes countershading - Answer - pattern of animal coloration in which animal's pigmentation is darker on the upper side and lighter on the underside of the body chromatophores - Answer - cells containing pigment, especially those that through contraction and expansion produce a temporary color, as in cuttlefishes poikilotherms - Answer - an organism having a body temperature that varies with the temperature of its surroundings ectotherms - Answer - animal dependent on external sources of body heat Q10 temperature coefficient - Answer - measure of how an increase of temperature by 10 degrees Celsius affects the rate of change of a particular biological or chemical system homeotherms/endotherms - Answer - animal that is dependent on or capable of the internal generation of heat
Deep Scattering Layer (DSL) - Answer - horizontal zone of living organisms occurring below the surface in many ocean areas, so called because the layer scatters or reflects sound waves, causing echoes in depth sounders barotrauma - Answer - trauma caused by rapid or extreme changes in air pressure, especially affecting enclosed cavities within the body pelagic - Answer - relating to living in or on oceanic waters; begins at the low tide mark and includes the entire oceanic water column hydrostatic pressure - Answer - the pressure exerted by gravity at a given point within a fluid , increasing in proportion to depth from the surface abyssal - Answer - relating to or denoting the water column or seabed of the ocean at depths between 4000 and 6000 meters osmoconformers - Answer - organisms that maintain an internal environment where the osmotic pressure of the organism's cells is equal to the osmotic pressure of the surrounding environment stenohaline - Answer - refers to an aquatic organism able to tolerate only a narrow range of salinity euryhaline - Answer - refers to organisms that are able to tolerate a wide range of salinity osmoregulators - Answer - an organism that can regulate or keep the solutes or salts of its body fluid at a higher or lower concentration than the concentration of solutes in the external medium ontogeny - Answer - refers to the developmental history of an organism within its own lifetime anadromous - Answer - refers to organisms such as salmon that migrate from saltwater to spawn in freshwater catadromous - Answer - refers to organisms such as eels that migrate down rivers to the open sea to spawn benthic - Answer - bottom of sea or lake (and organisms that live there) neritic - Answer - the area of the ocean that extends from the low-tide line out to the edge of the continental shelf bathyal - Answer - water column or seabed of the ocean at depths between 1000 and 4000 meters
abyssal - Answer - water column or seabed of the ocean at depths between 4000 and 6000 meters hadal - Answer - deep ocean zone of the sea greater than approximately 6000 meters in depth (chiefly oceanic trenches) intertidal - Answer - area of seashore that is covered at high tide and uncovered at low tide subtidal - Answer - the area below the low tide water line to the edge of the continental shelf trophic levels - Answer - refers to a position in the food chain; the hierarchical levels of the food chain through which energy flows from primary producers to primary consumers, secondary consumers and so on phytoplankton - Answer - photosynthetic component of plankton consisting of free floating algae, protists, and cyanobacteria that fixes large amounts of carbon, which would otherwise be released as CO zooplankton - Answer - heterotrophic animal and protist component of the plankton primary production - Answer - conversion of carbon into organic compounds by photosynthetic autotrophs microplankton - Answer - plankton composed of organisms measuring from 20 to 200 micrometers nanoplankton - Answer - plankton of minute size, especially plankton composed of organisms measuring from 2 to 20 micrometers picoplankton - Answer - plankton composed of organisms, chiefly bacteria, measuring from 0.2 to 2 micrometers bacterioplankton - Answer - bacterial component of the plankton that drifts in the water column mycoplankton - Answer - fungi or fungus-like organisms comprising the plankton, mostly the filamentous free-living fungi and yeasts saprotrophic - Answer - a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of dead or decayed organic matter
