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Water is the medium of the oceans, the medium which carries all the substances and elements involved in the marine biogeochemical cycles. Water as found in nature almost always includes dissolved substances, so water has been described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve so many substances.
Upwelling intensity depends on wind strength and seasonal variability, as well as the vertical structure of the water, variations in the bottom bathymetry, and instabilities in the currents. In some areas, upwelling is a seasonal event leading to periodic bursts of productivity similar to spring blooms in coastal waters. Wind-induced upwelling ...
Eutrophication is a general term describing a process in which nutrients accumulate in a body of water, resulting in an increased growth of organism that may deplete the oxygen in the water. [1] [2] Eutrophication may occur naturally or as a result of human actions.
A gelatinous lichen, also widely known as a "jelly lichen", is one with a cyanobacterial species ("blue-green alga") as the principal photobiont. Chains of the photobiont, rather than fungal hyphae, make up the bulk of the thallus, which is unlayered (and undifferentiated) as a result. [ 43 ]
On the contrary, this process creates downwelling when the cyclone decays and the pycnocline returns to its original state. Through such mechanism eddy pumping generates upwelling of cold, nutrient rich deep waters in cyclonic eddies and downwelling of warm, nutrient poor, surface water in anticyclonic eddies.
This is a major process in the ocean and without vertical migration it wouldn't be nearly as efficient. The deep ocean gets most of its nutrients from the higher water column when they sink down in the form of marine snow. This is made up of dead or dying animals and microbes, fecal matter, sand and other inorganic material.
Some of these processes take place in deep water so that where there is an upwelling of cold waters, and also near estuaries where land-sourced nutrients are present, plant growth is higher. This means that the most productive areas, rich in plankton and therefore also in fish, are mainly coastal. [79]: 160–163
These upwelling systems are driven by seasonal winds that force the surface waters near the coast to move offshore, which pulls deeper water up along the continental shelf. As the depth of the deoxygenated deeper water becomes shallower, more of the deoxygenated water can reach the continental shelf, causing coastal hypoxia and fish kills.