A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island is known as an insular shelf.
Xenophyophorea is a clade of foraminiferans. Members of this class are multinucleate unicellular organisms found on the ocean floor throughout the world's oceans, at depths of 500 to 10,600 metres. They are a kind of foraminiferan that extracts minerals from their surroundings and uses them to form an exoskeleton known as a test.
An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) and 6,000 metres (20,000 ft). Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth's surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest, and least explored regions on Earth. Abyssal plains are key geologic elements of oceanic basins.
The seabed is the bottom of the ocean, no matter how deep. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'.
The World Ocean Atlas (WOA) is a data product of the Ocean Climate Laboratory of the National Oceanographic Data Center (U.S.). The WOA consists of a climatology of fields of in situ ocean properties for the World Ocean. It was first produced in 1994, with later editions at roughly four year intervals in 1998, 2001, 2005, 2009, and 2013.
Sediment Profile Imagery (SPI) is an underwater technique for photographing the interface between the seabed and the overlying water. The technique is used to measure or estimate biological, chemical, and physical processes occurring in the first few centimetres of sediment, pore water, and the important benthic boundary layer of water. Time-lapse imaging (tSPI) is used to examine biological activity over natural cycles, like tides and daylight or anthropogenic variables like feeding loads in aquaculture. SPI systems cost between tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars and weigh between 20 and 400 kilograms. Traditional SPI units can be effectively used to explore continental shelf and abyssal depths. Recently developed SPI-Scan or rSPI systems can now also be used to inexpensively investigate shallow (<50m) freshwater, estuarine, and marine systems.
The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) is the largest contiguous ecosystem on earth. In oceanography, a subtropical gyre is a ring-like system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere caused by the Coriolis Effect. They generally form in large open ocean areas that lie between land masses.
Hotspot Ecosystem Research and Man's Impact On European Seas (HERMIONE) is an international multidisciplinary project, started in April 2009, that studies deep-sea ecosystems. HERMIONE scientists study the distribution of hotspot ecosystems, how they function and how they interconnect, partially in the context of how these ecosystems are being affected by climate change and impacted by humans through overfishing, resource extraction, seabed installations and pollution. Major aims of the project are to understand how humans are affecting the deep-sea environment and to provide policy makers with accurate scientific information, enabling effective management strategies to protect deep sea ecosystems. The HERMIONE project is funded by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, and is the successor to the HERMES project, which concluded in March 2009.
The benthic boundary layer (BBL) is the layer of water directly above the sediment at the bottom of a body of water. It is generated by the friction of the water moving over the surface of the substrate. The thickness of this zone is determined by many factors, including the Coriolis force.
Otolith microchemical analysis is a technique used in fisheries management and fisheries biology to delineate stocks and characterize movements, and natal origin of fish. The concentrations of elements and isotopes in otoliths are compared to those in the water in which the fish inhabits in order to identify where it has been. In non-ostariophysian fishes, the largest of the three otoliths, or ear bones, the sagitta is analyzed by one of several methods to determine the concentrations of various trace elements and stable isotopes. In ostariophysian fishes, the lapilli is the largest otolith and may be more commonly analysed.
Syed Wajih Ahmad Naqvi is an Indian marine scientist and the former director of the National Institute of Oceanography. His work has concentrated in oceanic water chemistry, biogeochemistry, and chemical interrelations with living organisms. He has also performed research on freshwater ecosystems. He was the Chief Indian Scientist of LOHAFEX, an Ocean Iron Fertilization experiment jointly planned by the Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), India, and Helmholtz Foundation, Germany.
Amperima rosea is a species of sea cucumber in the family Elpidiidae. It is found on the seabed at abyssal depths of 4,000 m (2.5 mi) or more. Around 1996, its numbers in the Porcupine Abyssal Plain in the northeastern Atlantic increased dramatically from a few individuals per hectare to over six thousand per hectare, a phenomenon that became known as the "Amperima event".
Ocean Networks Canada is a University of Victoria initiative that operates the NEPTUNE and VENUS cabled ocean observatories in the northeast Pacific Ocean and the Salish Sea. Additionally, Ocean Networks Canada operates smaller community-based observatories offshore from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut., Campbell River, Kitamaat Village and Digby Island. These observatories collect data on physical, chemical, biological, and geological aspects of the ocean over long time periods. As with other ocean observatories such as ESONET, Ocean Observatories Initiative, MACHO and DONET, scientific instruments connected to Ocean Networks Canada are operated remotely and provide continuous streams of freely available data to researchers and the public. Over 200 gigabytes of data are collected every day.
The British Mid-Ocean Ridge Initiative was a multidisciplinary scientific investigation of the creation of the Earth’s crust in the deep oceans. It was funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) from 1993 to 1999.
Bhamidipati Lakshmidhara Kanakadri Somayajulu is an Indian geochemist and a CSIR Emeritus Scientist at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. He is known for his studies on ancient and contemporary marine processes and is an elected fellow of several science societies such as the National Academy of Sciences, India, Geological Society of India, Indian Geophysical Union, American Geophysical Union, European Association for Geochemistry, Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1978.
The marine ecoregions of the South African exclusive economic zone are a set of geographically delineated regions of similar ecological characteristics on a fairly broad scale, covering the exclusive economic zone along the South African coast.
The Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) was an international research programme on the fluxes of carbon between the atmosphere and ocean, and within the ocean interior. Initiated by the Scientific Committee of Oceanic Research (SCOR), the programme ran from 1987 through to 2003, and became one of the early core projects of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).
The Marine biodiversity of South Africa is the variety of living organisms that live in the seas off the coast of South Africa. It includes genetic, species and ecosystems biodiversity in a range of habitats spread over a range of ecologically varied regions, influenced by the geomorphology of the seabed and circulation of major and local water masses, which distribute both living organisms and nutrients in complex and time-variable patterns.
Imants (Monty) George Priede is a British-Latvian zoologist, author and academic. He is Professor Emeritus in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland known for his work on fish and life in the deep sea.
