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170 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back

Who were the first regular ocean traders?

The Phoenicians

What was the Library of Alexandria?

-History's greatest accumulation of ancient


writings (3rd century BCE)


-Founded by Alexander the Great in Egypt


-1st university


-scrolls and charts from ships were taken and kept here

What is a chart?

Graphic representations of water and water-


related information

Cartographer

"Chart maker", The first were mariners that wrote information down during voyages

Eratosthenes of Cyrene

-2nd librarian at Alexandria


-First to correctly calculate the circumference of the Earth


-Developed longitude and latitude

Prime meridian

0 degrees longitude


Greenwich, England

Latitude

Lines running parallel to the equator

Longitude

Lines running from pole to pole; perpendicular to equator

Polynesians

Spread to New Guinea, Phillipines, Central Polynesia, then Hawaii


Used stick charts to navigate

What was the first voyage solely for science?

HMS Challenger (1872-1876)

Captain James Cook

-Member of Royal Navy


-first to use scientific investigation



Stick Charts

A bamboo grid that showed wind and wave patterns and used shells to represent locations of islands.

Reverse Tribute

Chinese navigators traveled to other lands with gifts to demonstrate their wealth and power.


-1400s


-300 ships

Chinese inventions

-compass


-central rudder


-watertight compartments


-multiple mast sails


-sail battens

Sail Battens

Bamboo inserted into pockets on the sail to prevent luffing, the vibration of the sail.

Renaissance

In the European Age of Discovery, when Europeans really began exploring the sea.

Henry the Navigator

Had explorers detail charts and explore the west coast of Africa.


Mid-1400s, established a center at Sagres for marine science and navigation.

Christopher Columbus

Wanted to travel from England to India, so went West, hit North America, and thought it was India.


His stories inspired others to follow.

Ferdinand Magellan

Led an expedition that was the first to circumnavigate the globe. He died in the Phillipines. Only 18 of 260 sailors returned from the 3 year trip.

US Exploring Expedition

Launched in 1838, was a naval and scientific expedition.

HMS Beagle

Ship on which Charles Darwin served as a naturalist. Traveled to South America and some Pacific Islands.

John Harrison

Designed and built a clock that was accurate enough to determine longitude.

Ben Franklin

Charted the first ocean current, the Gulf Stream, with his cousin, Tom Falger.

Matthew Maury

Father of physical oceanography; sensed a worldwide pattern of surface winds and published information on how to sail.

Thomson and Murray

Proposed the Challenger expedition, which took measurements on currents, meteorology, distribution of sediments, locations of coral reefs, and discovered 4717 new species.

Polar Expedition

Explorers reached the north and south poles by the 20th century

Meteor Expedition

First expedition to use modern optical and electronic equipment for oceanographic investigation; used echosounder

Atlantis

Vessel whose expeditions confirmed the Mid- Atlantic Ridge

Trieste

Blimp-like bathyscaphe that descended into the Challenger Deep area of the Mariana Trench

Glomar Challenger

Drilling ship where samples obtained by scientists provided confirming evidence of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics

Echosounder

Used to sense contours of the seafloor by beaming sound waves and measuring the time required for the waves to bounce back.

Three most prominent marine institutions in the United States

1. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution


2. Scripps Institution of Oceanography


3. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

HROV Nereus

Autonomic robotic device that carries out tasks programmed previously; deepest diving vehicle in operation

Topex/Poseidon

Satellite that provides 95% coverage of the Earth

Jason-1

Satellite that monitors global climate interactions between the ocean and atmosphere

Aqua

Project to collect a large amount of information about the Earth's water cycle

Alfred Wegener

German meteorologist and polar explorer; proposed continental drift.


Said continents fit together and were once Pangaea and have been drifting apart

Evidence for Pangaea

-Continents fit together


-Alignment of mountain ranges on different continents


-fossil tropical plants in Antarctica

Continental Crust

Outermost layer of Earth on land composed of granite; density = 2.7 g/cm3

Oceanic Crust

Outermost layer of Earth beneath ocean composed of basalt; density = 2.9 g/cm3

Mantle

Middle layer composed of silicon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium.


Density = 4.5 g/cm3

Core

Innermost layers with liquid outer core layer and solid innermost core layer composed mainly of iron.


Density = 13 g/cm3

Lithosphere

Cool, rigid, outer layer of Earth

Asthenosphere

Hot, partially melted layer that flows slowly

Mantle

Denser and more slowly flowing than asthenosphere

Outer Core

Dense, viscous liquid layer, extremely hot

Inner Core

Solid, very dense and extremely hot

Buoyancy

Floats by displacing a volume of water equal to it's weight

Isostatic Equilibrium

Balanced support of lighter material in a heavier, displaced supporting matrix; analogous to buoyancy in a liquid

Pacific Ring of Fire

A circle of violent geological activity surrounding much of the Pacific Ocean

Radiometric dating

Dates rocks by measuring the amounts of different elements in rocks.


Radioactive decay is that elements lose particles from nuclei, are unstable, and change into new stable forms.


Can measure the half-life, time it takes for half of the element to decay.

Echo sounder

Devices that measure the depth by bouncing high-frequency sound waves off the bottom and measure the time until they are received.

Theory of Plate Tectonics

Developed primarily by John Tuzo Wilson. Integration of continental drift and seafloor spreading. The lithosphere consists of many plates that are floating on the asthenosphere.

Radioactive Decay

Decay of unstable nuclei into other stable forms. Creates heat in the core.


Ex. Ur238 to Pb206

Convection Currents

Form when warm mantle rises and cool, dense mantle sinks down. Powered by gravity and temperature.

Archipelago

Chain of islands that form because of hotspots.


Ex. Hawaiian islands

Transform Boundaries

Areas where plates move laterally adjacent to one another. Crust is conserved. Earthquake potential is high.

Convergent Boundaries

Where plates move into one another; crust is destroyed. The denser crust is subducted under the lighter and destroyed. Creates volcanoes.

Divergent Boundaries

These are constructive boundaries where plates are moving away from each other, leaving a gap where new crust is formed.

Terranes

Oceanic plateaus formed by uplifting and mountain building as they strike a continent.

Bathymetry

The study of the contours of the ocean floor.

Echo sounding

Measures depth of ocean from a boat by emitting sound pulses and measuring the time it takes for the pulses to be reflected back to the boat after hitting bottom.

Multibeam System

Uses many beams, up to 121, to investigate the contours of the sea floor in more detail

Satellite Altimetry

Use satellites that are not moving in orbit and send radar beams down to measure changes in sea surface which reflects ocean floor. Gravitational pull causes water to pile up over large peaks.

Didson

Dual-beam sonar with high resolution to enable you to tell the difference between fishes.

Continental Margin

Classification of sea floor. The submerged outer edge of a continent.

Ocean Basin

Classification of sea floor. The deep sea floor beyond a continental margin.

Passive Margins

Continental margins that face the edges of diverging plates. Have little activity and wide shelves.

Active Margins

Continental margins that face edges of converging plates, resulting in a lot of activity and narrow shelves.

Continental Shelf

Shallow, submerged edge of a continent. Wider among passive margins, narrow along active.

Continental Slope

Transition between continental shelf and deep ocean floor. Formed by sediments that reach the edge of the shelf and spill over the side. Slopes are steeper at active margins than passive.

Shelf Break

Abrupt transition from shelf to slope.

Continental Rise

Present at passive margins. Crust at the base of the slope is covered by an accumulation of sediment.

Turbidity Current

Turbulence mixes sediments into water above a sloping bottom. The sediment-filled water is denser so it runs down slopes at high speeds and can create submarine canyons.

Submarine Canyon

These canyons cut into shelves and slopes and terminate on the deep-sea floor in a fan-shaped wedge of sediment.


Ex. Hudson Canyon east of NJ

Oceanic Ridges

Mountainous chains of young basaltic rock at active spreading centers

Hydrothermal Vents

Cold water descends into the crust where it is heated as it descends toward magma while picking up Fe, S, Cu, Zn, etc. The heated water returns to the surface carrying the elements and discharges through fissures or vents on the floor.

Who discovered hydrothemal vents?

Robert Ballard discovered them while he was on the submersible called Alvin

Abyssal Plains

Flat areas of sediment covered floor between continental margins and oceanic ridges found on the periphery of all oceans (less in Pacific). Sediment can exceed 1000 m thick

Abyssal Hills

Extinct volcanoes or rock intrusions near oceanic ridges that form when newly formed crust moves away from the center of a ridge.

Seamount

Volcanic projections from the floor that don't rise above sea level and are formed at spreading centers

Guyots

Flat-topped seamounts that have been eroded by waves and carried away from a spreading center.

Coral Atoll

Coral grows around an oceanic island. The island subsides as the coral continues to grow until the island is completely underwater. This leaves a circle of coral and a lagoon in the middle.

Trench

Arc-shaped depressions in the floor that are caused by subduction of a converging oceanic plate. Most are on edges of active Pacific and are the deepest places in Earth's crust

Sediment

Particles of organic or inorganic materials that accumulate in loose, unconsolidated forms

Terrigenous sediment

Sediment originating on land. Erosion of mountains by water and wind carries sediment to the sea, it gets deposited on the sea floor, and travels with the plate.

Biogenous sediment

Sediment of biological origin. Can either be siliceous or calcareous elements in the shells or skeletons of small animals.

Hydrogenous sediment

Minerals that have precipitated directly from seawater from submerged rock, leaching from crust, hydrothermal vents, and river runoff.


Most common are manganese and phosphorite nodules.

Cosmogenous sediment

Sediment of extraterrestrial origin. From interplanetary dust that falls on the atmosphere and rare impacts by large asteroids and comets

Microtektites

Translucent oblong particles of glass that form as asteroid impacts melt some of the crustal material of Earth, splashes it into space, and the material melts again as it rushes through the atmosphere.

Neritic sediment

Sediment on the continental shelf that consists primarily of terrigenous material.

Pelagic sediment

Sediments of the slope, rise, and deep-ocean floor. These are finer and mostly biogenous.

Lithification

Neritic sediments are converted into sedimentary rock by pressure-induced compaction or by cementation

Turbidites

The deposits from turbidity currents when they stop. These are graded layers of terrigenous sand interbedded with finer pelagic sediments typical of the deep-sea floor.

Ooze

Deep-ocean sediment containing at least 30% biogenous material. Small, single-celled, drifting, plantlike organisms and the organisms that feed on them contribute to oozes.

Siliceous Ooze

The shells of the small animals of oozes are made of silica. Radiolarians and diatoms

Calcareous Ooze

The shells of the small animals of oozes are made of calcium carbonate. Foraminifera, pteropods, and coccolithophores.

Calcium carbonate compensation depth (CCD)

The depth where the rate at which calcareous sediments are supplied to the seabed equals the rate at which those sediments dissolve. Below this depth, the skeletons dissolve leaving no ooze.

Manganese nodules

Discovered on the HMS Challenger, consist primarily of manganese and iron oxides.They grow very slowly and often form around nuclei such as teeth, bone, and skeletons. Bacterial activity may play a role in development

Evaporites

Hydrogenous deposits of salts. These salts precipitate as water evaporates from isolated arms of the ocean or from landlocked seas or lakes.

Oolite sands

Molecules of calcium carbonate may precipitate around shell fragments or other particles to form white, rounded grains.

Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP)

Oceanic drilling project from 1968-1983. Provided crucial data to support seafloor spreading and the theory of plate tectonics.

GLOMAR Challenger

Drilled all over the world, discovered salt domes and oil there. Drilled 17 holes at 10 different locations along the Mid-Atlantic ridge. Verified young age of ocean floor.

Clamshell sampler

Tool to take relatively undisturbed sediment samples

Piston corer

A cylinder of sediment is taken to determine the age, density, strength, molecular composition, and radioactivity of the material

Palynology

Study of plant pollen, spores, and certain microscopic planktonic organisms (palynomorphs) in living and fossil forms

Palynostratigraphy

Utilizing palynology to observe differences in pollen, spores, etc. in different fossil layers. This can indicate changes in water and over land

Polar molecule

Has both a positive and negative side

Hydrogen bonds

Hold water molecules together; positive end of one water molecule bonds to the negative end of another

Cohesion

Ability of water molecules to stick together, creating surface tension

Adhesion

The tendency of water molecules to stick to other surfaces/substances

Heat

Energy produced by the random vibration of atoms or molecules

Heat Capacity

A measure of the heat required to raise the temperature of 1gram of a substance by 1 degree C.

Latent heat of vaporization

The amount of energy required to break the bonds. This is heat input that does not cause a temperature change but does produce a change in state.

Latent heat of fusion

The amount of heat energy that must be removed per gram of pure water at 0 decrees C to form ice. 80 calories of heat for water

Thermal Inertia

Tendency of a substance to resist a change in temperature with the gain or loss of heat energy

Surface zone

Top layer with the lowest density and 2% of all ocean water. Temp and salinity are constant with depth due to current and wave action

Pycnocline

Zone in which density increases with increasing depth. 18% of all ocean water. Isolates surface water from dense deep water

Deep zone

Little change in density with depth. Makes up 80% of ocean water

Thermocline

Zone in which temperature changes rapidly with depth. Same layer as the pycnocline

Halocline

Zone of rapid salinity increase with depth. Zone often coincides with the thermocline to produce a pronounced pycnocline.

Refraction

The bending of waves when they travel from one medium to another

Refractive index

A ratio that expresses the degree to which light is refracted from one medium to another.

Absorption

Light's electromagnetic energy is converted to heat

Scattering

When light bounces between air or water molecules, dust, water droplets, or other objects before being absorbed

Photic zone

Thin film of lighted water at the surface zone. 600m in clear water, 100m in most

Aphotic zone

Dark water that lies in blackness. The only light in this zone is light of biological origin

Twilight zone

Area of rapidly decreasing light

Active sonar



The projection and return through water of short pulses of high-frequency sound to search for objects in the ocean

Side-scan sonar

Sound pulses leave the submerged towed array, bounce off the bottom, return to the device, and the computer processes the pulses into images

Ionic bonds

Electrostatic attraction that exists between ions that have the opposite charge. Between Na and Cl

Salinity

The total quantity of dissolved inorganic solids in water

Forchhammer's principle

The ratio of major salts is constant in samples of seawater from various locations. The ocean is always in constant proportions; the ocean is at chemical equilibrium because ions are added and removed at the same rate

Residence time

Average length of time an element spends in the ocean

Mixing time

How often the ocean is overturned; about 1600 years

Conservative constituents

These constituents occur in constant proportions, have long residence times, and are the most abundant dissolved materials in the ocean.


Ex. Na and Cl

Nonconservative constituents

These have short residence times and are associated with seasonal, biological, or short geological cycles.


Ex. Ca, Si, Fe

Coriolis Effect

Deflection of air or water away from it's initial course due to east rotation of Earth. N hem turn to right, S hem turn to left. Due to spherical shape of Earth so equator moves faster than northern locations because must cover a larger distance in the same time.

Currents

Mass flow of water

Surface currents

Wind-driven flow of water near the surface of the ocean

Thermohaline currents

Deep, slow currents that affect seawater beneath the pycnocline

Gyre

Circular currents formed by surface winds, the sun's heat, the Coriolis effect, and gravity


Clockwise in N hem, counter clockwise S hem

What are the 4 currents that make up the North Atlantic gyre?

Gulf stream


North Atlantic current


Canary current


North equatorial current

Ekman transport

Surface water moves 45 deg right of wind direction. The lower layer moves to the right of the surface and so on. The net movement of water is 90 deg right of wind direction

Geostrophic gyres

Gyres in balance between the pressure gradient and the Coriolis effect


N. At, S. At, N. Pac, S. Pac, Indian

Antarctic Circumpolar current

Flows endlessly eastward around Antarctica driven by westerly winds

Western boundary currents

Narrow, deep, fast currents found at western boundaries of ocean basins

Eastern boundary currents

cold, shallow, broad with poorly defined boundaries

Atmospheric circulation cell

A large ciruit of air

Hadley cells

Tropical cells found on each side of the equator. Air warms as it flows south near the surface, rises and cools as it moves north until it condenses and falls. This can go south to complete the cycle or north.

Ferrel cells

Cells at mid-latitudes. Falling northward air from Hadley cells generate current flowing north across the surface that is warm and rises. This air can go south, cool, condense and fall to complete the cycle or go north

Polar cells

Cells located near the poles. Northward air from the Ferrel cells continue at high altitudes towards the poles, eventually condensing and falling. That air moves southward across the surface and warms until it rises and either goes north to complete the cycle or south into the Ferrel cells

Doldrums

Calm equatorial areas between Hadley cells. Strong heating causes surface air to rise, creating a lot of rain in the area

Horse latitudes

Areas between Hadley and Ferrel cells where cool, dry air is falling. Evaporation is higher than precipitation in these areas

Trade winds

Surface winds of the Hadley cells. In N. hem: northeasterly trade winds, S. hem: southeasterly trade winds

Westerlies

Surface winds of the Ferrel cells.

Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)

Same as doldrums. Where winds on either side of the equator converge. Position changes seasonally: most north in July and most south in January due to thermostatic effects of water

Monsoon

A pattern of wind circulation that changes with the season. These areas have wet summers and dry winters. Because of differential heating of land and ocean.

Sea Breeze

In the afternoon when land heats more than the ocean so warm air over land rises and cool air over ocean moves shoreward to replace it.

Land Breeze

At night when the land cools more than the ocean so warm air over the ocean rises and cool air from land moves offshore to replace it

Storms

Regional atmospheric disturbances

Cyclones

Huge rotating masses of low pressure air in which winds converge and ascend

Tropical Cyclones

Cyclones in tropical areas that form in one air mass. Spin counter clockwise in the N hem and clockwise in S hem

Extratropical Cyclones

At the boundary of the Ferrel and Polar cells in winter. Temperature difference across the polar front is large and winds go in different directions, enlarging the waves. Eventually, a twist will form and the cold dense air slides beneath the warmer air and eventually forms a cyclone

Meanders (eddies)

Isolated pockets of warmer water that pinch off after sharp meanders in the current. The force of the water will cut across the curved path and pinch off the meander, creating an eddy.

Westward Intensification

Water at the northern boundary of a gyre feels the Coriolis effect more and turns to the right (southward) sooner than westward water turns to the north. Causes western boundary currents to be faster, deeper, and more concentrated.

Upwelling

Vertical movement of water upwards due to wind.

Downwelling

Vertical movement of water downwards due to wind

El Nino

Trade winds diminish and warm water pool moves eastward, creating precipitation and downwelling at the east coast and dry conditions and upwelling of warm surface water in the west. Causes crashes in fisheries.

La Nina

Overcompensation for El Nino. Trade winds return strongly and moves the warm water back to the west allowing the east to cool off and creates massive upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich water in the east.