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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 debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created solid material that has deliberately or accidentally been released in seas or the ocean. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing aground, when it is known as beach litter or tidewrack.
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.
Marine ecosystems are characterized by the biological community of organisms that they are associated with and their physical environment. Classes of organisms found in marine ecosystems include brown algae , dinoflagellates , corals , cephalopods , echinoderms , and sharks .
Collapsed Ordovician limestone bank showing coastal erosion.NW Osmussaar, Estonia.. Coastal geography is the study of the constantly changing region between the ocean and the land, incorporating both the physical geography (i.e. coastal geomorphology, climatology and oceanography) and the human geography (sociology and history) of the coast.
Primary coasts are shaped by non-marine processes, by changes in the land form. If a coast is in much the same condition as it was when sea level was stabilised after the last ice age, it is called a primary coast. [27] "Primary coasts are created by erosion (the wearing away of soil or rock), deposition (the buildup of sediment or sand) or ...
General characteristics of a large marine ecosystem (Gulf of Alaska). Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, plants, algae, fungi, protists, single-celled microorganisms and associated viruses living in the saline water of marine habitats, either the sea water of marginal seas and oceans, or the brackish water of coastal ...
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. [1] Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environments and are an example of an ecotone.