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Open ocean convection is a process in which the mesoscale ocean circulation and large, strong winds mix layers of water at different depths. Fresher water lying over the saltier or warmer over the colder leads to the stratification of water, or its separation into layers. Strong winds cause evaporation, so the ocean surface cools, weakening the ...
Buoyancy-forced downwelling, often termed convection, is the deepening of a water parcel due to a change in the density of that parcel.Density changes in the surface ocean are primarily the result of evaporation, precipitation, heating, cooling, or the introduction and mixing of an alternate water or salinity source, such as river input or brine rejection.
In 1953, the cartographer Marie Tharp generated the first three-dimensional relief map of the ocean floor which proved there was an underwater mountain range in the middle of the Atlantic, along with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. [7] The survey data was large step towards many more discoveries about the geology of the sea. [6]
This was sufficient to allow computing of spreading rates over the last 700,000 years on many mid-ocean ridges by locating the closest reversed crust boundary to the crest of a mid-ocean ridge. [11] Marine magnetic anomalies were found later to span the vast flanks of the ridges. [ 9 ]
In physical oceanography, Langmuir circulation consists of a series of shallow, slow, counter-rotating vortices at the ocean's surface aligned with the wind. These circulations are developed when wind blows steadily over the sea surface. Irving Langmuir discovered this phenomenon after observing windrows of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea in 1927. [1]
Plates that are not subducting are driven by gravity sliding off the elevated mid-ocean ridges a process called ridge push. [4] At a spreading center, basaltic magma rises up the fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form new seabed. Hydrothermal vents are common at spreading centers. Older rocks will be found farther away from the ...
Oceanographers explored an area around the Pacific Ocean’s Nazca Ridge and found a massive underwater mountain. ... Of the 71 percent of the Earth’s surface that is ocean floor, only 26 ...
This mixing is what enables the convection between ocean layers, and thus, deep water currents. [1] In the 1920s, Sandström's framework was expanded by accounting for the role of salinity in ocean layer formation. [1] Salinity is important because like temperature, it affects water density.