The Oceans

Question 1

What is salinity?

Answer 1

The total amount of salt in a sample of water

Question 2

What happens when salt dissolves into water?

Answer 2

It, sodium chloride, separates into sodium and chloride particles called ions

Question 3

What happens to the salt when the water freezes or evaporates?

Answer 3

The salt is left behind

Question 4

What are the effects of salinity?

Answer 4

1. Ocean water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water
2. Ocean (salt) water has a higher density than fresh water
3. Ocean water lifts less dense objects

Question 5

How does temperature change as depth in the ocean changes?

Answer 5

The temperature gets colder as you go deeper, since cold water sinks and warm water rises

Question 6

What is a water column?

Answer 6

A vertical section of the ocean

Question 7

What are the three zones in the water column (in the ocean)?

Answer 7

1. The surface zone - the warmest (extends from surface to about 100-500 meters)
2. Transition zone - extends from surface zone to about 1 kilometer
3. The deep zone

Question 8

How can scientists observe the deep ocean?

Answer 8

With a submersible - which can resist pressure

Question 9

What is used to map the ocean floor?

Answer 9

A sonar - sends sounds to bounce off the ocean floor (the faster it comes, the shallower the water is)

Question 10

What are the major ocean features?

Answer 10

1. Seamounts
2. Trenches
3. Continental slope
4. Continental shelf
5. Abyssal plain
6. Mid Ocean ridge

Question 11

List the major ocean features from least to greatest in depth

Answer 11

1. Continental shelf, continental slope, seamounts, abyssal plain, mid ocean ridge, and trench

Question 12

What is a wave?

Answer 12

A movement of energy through a body of water

Question 13

How do waves usually form?

Answer 13

Wind blowing across the water’s surface transmits their energy into the water

Question 14

What are the different wave characteristics?

Answer 14

Wave length, wave height, trough, crest

Question 15

What is a wave trough?

Answer 15

It is the dip in a wave

Question 16

What is a wave crest?

Answer 16

It is the rise in a wave

Question 17

What is wave height?

Answer 17

The distance from the trough to the crest

Question 18

What is wave length?

Answer 18

The distance between crests

Question 19

Does water actually move forward?

Answer 19

No

Question 20

What path does water move in when a wave passes?

Answer 20

A circular path

Question 21

What is a breaker?

Answer 21

A wave where the bottom of the wave and ocean floor create friction, so it slows down - and the top of the wave collapses. These waves are white capped.

Question 22

Near shore, what happens to wave height and wave length?

Answer 22

Wave height increases and wave length decreases

Question 23

What is a tsunami?

Answer 23

A wave caused by an earthquake underwater. People might not even realize it is passing, because the wave length could be long - but the wave height is very short. As the ocean floor gets shallower, the top of the wave pile up on each other suddenly, causing very large waves with tall wave heights

Question 24

What is longshore drift?

Answer 24

When water and sand run along the beach

Question 25

What is a sandbar?

Answer 25

A ridge (made of sand) that is formed when water deposits the sand it is carrying onto the shore

Question 26

What is a rip current?

Answer 26

A rush of water that flows rapidly back to sea through a narrow opening

Question 27

Three ways to prevent beach erosion:

Answer 27

Barrier Beaches: sand deposits that are separated from the mainland by a small body of water, parallel to the shore. It stops waves from touching the mainland, so it prevents erosion Sand dunes: when sand piles up on plants with strong roots (dune plants), which helps slow erosion Groins: a wall of rocks outward from the beach. Sand piles up on one side of the groins instead of going back down the shore

Question 28

What is a current?

Answer 28

A large stream of water that flows through the oceans

Question 29

What are currents mainly driven by?

Answer 29

Winds. They follow earth’s major wind patterns.

Question 30

What direction/pattern do they move in?

Answer 30

In circular patterns. Most of them flow east or west, and circle back to where they started

Question 31

Why do currents move in circular patterns?

Answer 31

The Coriolis effect causes currents to move in circular directions. In the Northern hemisphere, currents move clockwise - in the Southern, currents move counter clockwise.

Question 32

What is the most powerful surface current in the North Atlantic Ocean?

Answer 32

The Gulf Stream

Question 33

How do surface currents have an effect on climate?

Answer 33

Surface currents warm or cool the air above it. This helps even out the air around the world

Question 34

What is El Niño?

Answer 34

Unusual wind patterns cause warm water in the ocean to move east. The cold water cannot reach the surface, so warm weather is frequent during this time. Heavy rains and flooding is common.

Question 35

What is La Niña?

Answer 35

The opposite of El Niño. Cold water causes cold weather, so there is greater precipitation and cooler winters.

Question 36

What are deep currents caused by?

Answer 36

Caused by differences in the density of ocean water

Question 37

What is the global ocean conveyor?

Answer 37

The simplified pattern of ocean currents. It starts in the Atlantic Ocean, where there is cold water - and it goes to Antarctica. It then goes to the Pacific Ocean, where it rises to the top and becomes warm water.

Question 38

What are the three ocean zones (horizontally)?

Answer 38

Intertidal zone, neritic, and open ocean zone

Question 39

What are the three categories of ocean organisms?

Answer 39

Plankton: Tiny algae and animals that float on the top of the ocean. They cannot move wherever they want. Nekton: free swimming animals that can move anywhere throughout the water column Benthos: Organisms that inhabit the ocean floor

Question 40

What is a food web?

Answer 40

All the feeding relationships that exist