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Consequently, enhancing the quantity of marine snow that reaches the deep ocean is the basis of several geoengineering schemes to enhance carbon sequestration by the ocean. Ocean nourishment and iron fertilisation seek to boost the production of organic material in the surface ocean, with a concomitant rise in marine snow reaching the deep ...
In the deep Sargasso Sea, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found what became known as marine snow in which the POM are repackaged into much larger particles which sink at much greater speed, falling like snow. [30] Because of the sparsity of food, the organisms living on and in the bottom are generally opportunistic.
Marine mucilage appears following an increase of phosphorus. In one 2021 case phosphorus values were three to four times higher than the previous year. Other excess nutrients [4] combined with drought conditions and prolonged warm sea temperatures and calm weather contributed. Marine mucilage is also produced by phytoplankton when they are ...
This device descends down the water column and takes images of the amount and size distribution of marine snow at various depths. These tiny particles are a food source for other organisms so it is important to monitor the different levels of marine snow to characterize the carbon cycling processes between the surface ocean and the mesopelagic. [3]
Alice Alldredge is an American oceanographer and marine biologist who studies marine snow, carbon cycling, microbes and plankton in the ecology of the ocean. She has been one of the most cited scientific researchers since 2003.
Marine snow varies in shape, size and character, ranging from individual cells to pellets and aggregates, most of which is rapidly colonized and consumed by heterotrophic bacteria, contributing to the attenuation of the sinking flux with depth.
Marine snow comprises macroscopic organic aggregates >500 μm in size and originates from clumps of aggregated phytoplankton (phytodetritus), discarded appendicularian houses, fecal matter and other miscellaneous detrital particles, [56] Appendicularians secrete mucous feeding structures or "houses" to collect food particles and discard and ...
These aggregations are commonly referred to as marine snow, and are important for the deposition of organic matter, and bacterial communities. [15] The amount of material sinking to the ocean floor can average 307,000 aggregates per m 2 per day. [16] This amount will vary on the depth of the benthos, and the degree of benthic-pelagic coupling.