The decayed matter deposited on the ocean floor becomes the nourishment for bacteria and sea floor creatures. This occurs due to the great amount of decaying animal and plant matter that descends from above. This amount remains constant down the water column until reaching the sea floor, where the quantity of living organisms increases again. Descending along the water column, the biomass decreases gradually to an insignificant amount. The ocean holds most of the biomass at the surface where most of the sea creatures thrive. Animals at these and deeper regions have developed large eyes and some others have developed bioluminescence, which help them attract food or a mate. Sunlight is unable to penetrate below the mesopelagic zone (1,000 meters or 3,300 ft.). The point in the ocean where the abyssal plain starts, which is about 4,000 meters deep, is where the water temperature plummets to 4 ☌, and the deeper you go from there, the colder it gets. The deep ocean is characterized by extreme cold temperatures. In the ocean the pressure increases at a rate of one atmosphere for every 33 ft. At the surface of the ocean, there is an atmospheric pressure of one atmosphere. Pressure increases with increasing depth. At deeper regions the calcareous shells will dissolve and the sediment is principally composed of siliceous remains of radiolarian zooplankton, brown clays and diatomic phytoplankton. The abyssal sea floor at 4,000 meters of depth and shallower regions is composed of calcareous shells of zooplankton and phytoplankton. The abyssal zone is saturated with nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorous and silica, of decayed organic matter from the waters above. The oxygen and salt levels present in the abyssal zone originate from the cold water currents at the Polar Regions. The environmental conditions in the abyssal zone are characterized by total darkness and cold temperatures. The abyssal zone covers an area of approximately 300 million square km (115, million miles), creating small valleys, hills and pockets of varied sedimentation. The icy and saline waters in the deep ocean floor originate at the poles, moving sluggishly along the abyssal plain. Its inhabitants have had to develop especial adaptations to withstand the extremely high pressures and cold temperatures. The abyssal zone has temperatures ranging from 2-3 ☌ (35-37 ☏). The abyssal zone is unable to receive the Sun’s rays therefore it remains in complete darkness. The abyssal zone is a very flat surface found from 4,000-6,000 meters (13,123- 19,685) in the deep basins of the ocean floor.
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