Marine bio winter term unit 1

What is GPS?

Global Positioning System. A system that determines one's exact location on Earth. using 3 satalites and the time it takes to receive a signal from your location.

North equatorial current

an equatorial current that flows west across the Pacific just north of the equator

What is a Mercator projection chart? Drawbacks to this type?

the Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite

Somali current

A surface current that flows north along the Somali coast of Africa.

What is a sextant? What does it measure? Why was Harrison's invention so important? Explain.

a sextant measures the angular distance between two visible objects. Allows celestial objects to be measured relative to the horizon, rather than relative to the instrument crucial for navigation

Thermocline

a steep temperature gradient marked by a layer above and below which the water is at different temperatures.

Diurnal tide

a tidal pattern with one high tide and one low tide each lunar day

Semidiurnal tide

a tidal pattern with two high and two low tides each day

Mixed semidiurnal

a tidal pattern with two successive high tides of different heights each day

Spring tides

a tide just after a new or full moon, when there is the greatest difference between high and low water.

Neap tides

a tide just after the first or third quarters of the moon when there is the least difference between high and low water.

Canary current

a wind-driven surface current that is part of the North Atlantic Gyre that flows southwest

Ebb tide

outgoing or falling tide

Ekman spirals

wind moves water fastest on top and however water movement progressively gets slower as you go deeper

John Harrison

year 1700's Ship: the Centurion Discovery: built the marine chronographer, which allowed ships to keep accurate time while at sea using the angle of the sun, the clock wasn't affected by the movement of the ship or temp (before time couldn't be kept accurately at sea)

Westerlies

Winds that blow from west to east

Leif Erickson

11th century, Discovery: left greenland and was blown off course into North America

James Cook

1728, SHIP: endeavor, revolution, discovery Discovery: He created the first accurate and detailed maps of the pacific ocean. He charted the east coast of australia and accurately measured longitude.Discovered Great Barrier Reef

Jacques Cousteau

1910 - 1997. Invented the Aqua-lung/scuba gear. ship: calypso

Robert Ballard

1942-now, Discovered the location of the Titanic and bismark, also helped discover thermal vents

California current

A cool Pacific Ocean current that moves south along the western coast of North America

nautical mile

A distance of 6076 feet, equaling one minute of the earth's latitude.

Gyre

A large-scale pattern of water circulation that moves clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere

Gulf stream

A warm ocean current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico northward through the Atlantic Ocean

passive vs active margins differ

Active continental margins tend to have narrow continental shelves while passive continental margins are continental margins that are not tectonically active.

Rachel Carson

Born in 1907 -1964 She found that DDT(an insecticide used in agriculture) is really bad. Second woman to be hired at bureau of fishery National book award winner. Pioneered raising awareness for marine life and preserving it.

Coriolis effect

Causes moving air and water to turn left in the southern hemisphere and turn right in the northern hemisphere due to Earth's hemisphere.

Northeast trade winds

Curve to the right due to the Coriolis Effect, blow from the northeast to the southwest

thermohaline circulation

Movement of ocean water caused by density difference brought about by variations in temperature and salinity. currents circulating through the main stream current around the world.

Slack water

State of a tidal current when its velocity is near zero; occurs when the tidal current changes direction.

Terrigenous sediment vs biogenous sediment

Terrigenous sediment is derived from continental sources transported by rivers, wind, ocean currents, and glaciers while biogenous sediment are sediments made from the skeletal remains of once-living organisms

Eastern Australian current

The East Australian Current (EAC) is a warm, southward, western boundary current that reaching the eastern coast of Australia

Benguela current

The cold eastern boundary current of the South Atlantic subtropical gyre

Downwelling

The movement of water from the surface to greater depths.

knot

Velocity of one nautical mile per hour

Brazil current

Warm ocean current flowing from the tropics southward along Brazilian coast.

Kuroshio

Warm water Current- Japanese current

South equatorial current

Westward moving current below the equator. Between the equator and 20 degrees south.

What is the difference between a map and chart?

Whereas a map is normally used for geographical understanding, a chart or diagram could be used for pictorial display of things/schemes like an organization chart, process flow or any other statistical data

Ferdinand Magellan

Year 1480 -1521, Ships: Trinidad, discovered the Strait of Magellan - what you cross to go to Antarctica Spanish expedition to the East Indies

Charles Darwin

Year 1809-1892 Ship: HMS beagle Galapagos islands where he founded theorie of evolution Atols- used to be volcano with coral around it A lot with coral reefs

Kathryn Sullivan

Year 1951-now Dicoveries- first women to go into mariana trench, and only person to ever go to space and mariana trench

Vagn Ekman

Year: 1854-1954 Discoveries: Ekman layer of the ocean (first twenty meters) Ekman spiral (Coriolis affect) wind moves mater fastest on top and progressively gets slower as you go deeper Ekman transport(water moves to one side of the ocean)

Alfred Wegener

Year: 1880-1930, Discovery: discovered continental drift hypothesis, discovered Pangea from similarities in continental coastlines, tectonic plates

Sylvia Earle

Year: 1935-now Discovery: 1968 discovered undersea dunes 1979 set the world record for deepest untethered dive founded deep ocean engineering, made a deep rover

James Cameron

Year: 1964-now Discovery: famous director and went to the challenger deep (third person to do so)

Horse latitudes

a belt of calm air and sea occurring in both the northern and southern hemispheres between the trade winds and the westerlies.

Peru current

a cold current that flows northward along the western coast of south america giving it a cooler climate than it would otherwise have

Western Australian current

a cool surface current of the Southern Ocean and Southern Indian Ocean

Doldrums

a frequently windless area near the Equator

Horse latitudes/doldrums

a latitude of the ocean where there is almost no wind so ships would have to throw horses off the sides in order to make the ship move

Pycnocline

a layer in an ocean or other body of water in which water density increases rapidly with depth.

Halocline

a layer of water below the mixed surface layer where a rapid change in salinity can be measured as depth increases

Polar easterlies

cold winds that blow from the east to the west near the North Pole and South Pole

why in certain westerly edges of currents and oceans there are coral found farther from the equator than usual and in other certain areas to the east side of currents/oceans kelps arefound far closer to the equator than one normally sees

coral reefs need warm water, currents coming up from the equator give warmer water to more northern and southern environments, while currents going towards the equator bring cold water making it harder for coral to live.

What does longitude tell us?

distance east or west of the prime meridian

Flood tide

incoming or rising tide

Which are all the same length all the lines of longitude or all the lines of latitude? Explain

length of longitude because they all go from the north to the south pole

What does latitude tell us?

measures the distance north or south of the equator

Southeast trade winds

south of the equator the trade winds blow from the southeast toward the northwest and are known as this

Upwelling

the upward movement of ocean water toward the surface as a result of diverging currents

Why do we have a prime meridian?

to be able to set longitudes

Jacques Piccard

year: 1922-2008 Discovery: invented the trieste that went 3000 meters underwater, US navy bought it fun fact: went underwater for 30 whole days in submarine he invented

Edith Widder

year: 1951-now discovered a new species of large squid (over six feet in length) also invented a bathyphotometer, which is the U.S. Navy standard for measuring bioluminescence in the ocean