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From shallow waters to the deep sea, the open ocean to rivers and lakes, numerous terrestrial and marine species depend on the surface ecosystem and the organisms found there. [28] The ocean's surface acts like a skin between the atmosphere above and the water below, and harbours an ecosystem unique to this environment.
Environments in which subsurface life has been found [1]. The deep biosphere is the part of the biosphere that resides below the first few meters of the ocean's surface. It extends 10 kilometers below the continental surface and 21 kilometers below the sea surface, at temperatures that may reach beyond 120 °C (248 °F) [2] which is comparable to the maximum temperature where a metabolically ...
It is the region of open sea beyond the edge of the continental shelf and includes 65% of the ocean's completely open water. The oceanic zone has a wide array of undersea terrain, including trenches that are often deeper than Mount Everest is tall, as well as deep-sea volcanoes and basins. While it is often difficult for life to sustain itself ...
The bathypelagic zone or bathyal zone (from Greek βαθύς (bathýs), deep) is the part of the open ocean that extends from a depth of 1,000 to 4,000 m (3,300 to 13,000 ft) below the ocean surface. It lies between the mesopelagic above and the abyssopelagic below.
Organisms in the abyssal zone rely on the natural processes of higher ocean layers. When animals from higher ocean levels die, their carcasses occasionally drift down to the abyssal zone, where organisms in the deep can feed on them. When a whale carcass falls down to the abyssal zone, this is called a whale fall. The carcass of the whale can ...
For the deep-sea ecosystem, the death of a whale is the most important event. A dead whale can bring hundreds of tons of organic matter to the bottom. Whale fall community progresses through three stages: [32] Mobile scavenger stage: Big and mobile deep-sea animals arrive at the site almost immediately after whales fall on the bottom.
The hadal zone, also known as the hadopelagic zone, is the deepest region of the ocean, lying within oceanic trenches.The hadal zone ranges from around 6 to 11 km (3.7 to 6.8 mi; 20,000 to 36,000 ft) below sea level, and exists in long, narrow, topographic V-shaped depressions.
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.