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The abyssal seafloor is also home to a variety of minerals valued by industry. Cobalt, nickel, aluminum, and manganese are used in items ranging from cars and wind turbines to phone and laptop batteries. Over millions of years, nodules containing relatively high concentrations of these minerals formed on the abyssal plain.
Ocean Zones. The ocean water column is made up of five zones: the sunlight zone (epipelagic), the twilight zone (mesopelagic), the midnight zone (bathypelagic), the abyssal zone (abyssopelagic) and the hadal zone (trenches). The upper layer of the ocean is known as the sunlit, or euphotic, zone. Because water strongly absorbs light, sunlight ...
The first deep-sea sediment trap was recovered on February 20, 1977, from 5,367 meters on the Sohm Abyssal Plain in the Sargasso Sea. As Sus Honjo and colleagues viewed the samples under a microscope, they confirmed a theory and began to solve the mystery of how benthic animals receive nourishment from surface waters in "packages" that descend ...
Wind Water and Ice. Like fiction, but real. Explore the “superpowers” of three Antarctic icons. Benthic animals live on the sea floor and are typically invertebrates, such as sea anemones, sponges, corals, sea stars, sea urchins, worms, mussels, crabs, and more.
The deepest trench in the world, the Mariana Trench located near the Mariana Islands, is 1,580 miles long and averages just 43 miles wide. It is home to the Challenger Deep, which, at 10,911 meters (35,797 feet), is the deepest part of the ocean. The Tonga, Kuril-Kamatcha, Philippine, and Kermadec Trenches all contain depths greater than 10,000 ...
At nearly 60,000 kilometers (37,000 miles) long, the mid-ocean is the longest mountain range on Earth. It formed and evolves as a result of spreading in Earth’s lithosphere—the crust and upper mantle—at the divergent boundaries between tectonic plates. The vast majority of volcanic activity on the planet occurs along the mid-ocean ridge ...
When Alvin relaunches next fall, the iconic sub will have the ability to dive to 6500 meters (21,325 feet)—almost 4 miles deep and 2,000 meters deeper than Alvin’s current maximum depth of 4500 meters (14,800 feet). The upgrade will also give the sub access to 99% of the ocean floor. Alvin was commissioned in 1964 and is named after WHOI ...
Although Alvin has been operating since 1964, the vehicle was significantly rebuilt in 2013 during an overhaul that included forging a larger titanium personnel sphere and rebuilding much of the sub from scratch. These improvements were made with the 6,500-meter capacity in mind, but left several critical steps for the final phase, which will ...
The ocean twilight zone is a layer of water that stretches around the globe. It lies 200 to 1,000 meters (about 650 to 3,300 feet) below the ocean surface, just beyond the reach of sunlight. Also known as the midwater or mesopelagic, the twilight zone is cold and its light is dim, but with flashes of bioluminescence—light produced by living ...
An aquatic animal, such as a mollusk or crustacean, that has a shell or shell-like exoskeleton. 266 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1050. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a 501 (c) (3) organization. We are proud to be recognized as a financially accountable and transparent, 4-star charity organization by Charity Navigator.