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Coast – Area where land meets the sea or ocean; Continental shelf – Coastal and oceanic landform; Coral reef – Outcrop of rock in the sea formed by the growth and deposit of stony coral skeletons; Cove – Small sheltered bay or coastal inlet; Cuspate foreland – Geographical features found on coastlines and lakeshores
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.
Marine ecosystems can be divided into many zones depending upon water depth and shoreline features. The oceanic zone is the vast open part of the ocean where animals such as whales, sharks, and tuna live. The benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is
A unit of area traditionally defined as the area of a plot of land one chain (66 feet) by one furlong (660 feet), equivalent to 43,560 square feet (0.001563 sq mi; 4,047 m 2), or about 0.40 hectare. active volcano A volcano that is currently erupting, or one that has erupted within the last 10,000 years (the Holocene) or during recorded history ...
Elevation-area graph showing the proportion of land area at given heights and the proportion of ocean area at given depths See also: Pelagic fish The open ocean is relatively unproductive because of a lack of nutrients, yet because it is so vast, it has more overall primary production than any other marine habitat.
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. [1] The ocean's surface acts like a skin between the atmosphere above and the water below, and hosts an ecosystem unique to this environment.
The catastrophic loss points to broader changes in marine environments driven by warming ocean temperatures, which are rapidly and severely restructuring ecosystems and inhibiting the ability of ...
The reefs surrounding islands form when islands subside into the ocean, and atolls form when an island subsides below the surface of the sea. Alternatively, Moyle and Cech distinguish six zones, though most reefs possess only some of the zones. [57] Water in the reef surface zone is often agitated. This diagram represents a reef on a ...