The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Americas. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. The Bering Sea is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator in Russian service, who, in 1728, was the first European to systematically explore it, sailing from the Pacific Ocean northward to the Arctic Ocean.
The biological pump (or ocean carbon biological pump or marine biological carbon pump) is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the ocean interior and seafloor sediments. In other words, it is a biologically mediated process which results in the sequestering of carbon in the deep ocean away from the atmosphere and the land. The biological pump is the biological component of the "marine carbon pump" which contains both a physical and biological component. It is the part of the broader oceanic carbon cycle responsible for the cycling of organic matter formed mainly by phytoplankton during photosynthesis (soft-tissue pump), as well as the cycling of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) formed into shells by certain organisms such as plankton and mollusks (carbonate pump).
The bathypelagic zone or bathyal zone is the part of the open ocean that extends from a depth of 1,000 to 4,000 m below the ocean surface. It lies between the mesopelagic above and the abyssopelagic below. The bathypelagic is also known as the midnight zone because of the lack of sunlight; this feature does not allow for photosynthesis-driven primary production, preventing growth of phytoplankton or aquatic plants. Although larger by volume than the photic zone, human knowledge of the bathypelagic zone remains limited by ability to explore the deep ocean.
In biogeochemistry, remineralisation refers to the breakdown or transformation of organic matter into its simplest inorganic forms. These transformations form a crucial link within ecosystems as they are responsible for liberating the energy stored in organic molecules and recycling matter within the system to be reused as nutrients by other organisms.
Biogenic silica (bSi), also referred to as opal, biogenic opal, or amorphous opaline silica, forms one of the most widespread biogenic minerals. For example, microscopic particles of silica called phytoliths can be found in grasses and other plants.
Gelatinous zooplankton are fragile animals that live in the water column in the ocean. Their delicate bodies have no hard parts and are easily damaged or destroyed. Gelatinous zooplankton are often transparent. All jellyfish are gelatinous zooplankton, but not all gelatinous zooplankton are jellyfish. The most commonly encountered organisms include ctenophores, medusae, salps, and Chaetognatha in coastal waters. However, almost all marine phyla, including Annelida, Mollusca and Arthropoda, contain gelatinous species, but many of those odd species live in the open ocean and the deep sea and are less available to the casual ocean observer. Many gelatinous plankters utilize mucous structures in order to filter feed. Gelatinous zooplankton have also been called "Gelata".
In the deep ocean, marine snow is a continuous shower of mostly organic detritus falling from the upper layers of the water column. It is a significant means of exporting energy from the light-rich photic zone to the aphotic zone below, which is referred to as the biological pump. Export production is the amount of organic matter produced in the ocean by primary production that is not recycled (remineralised) before it sinks into the aphotic zone. Because of the role of export production in the ocean's biological pump, it is typically measured in units of carbon. The term was first coined by the explorer William Beebe as he observed it from his bathysphere. As the origin of marine snow lies in activities within the productive photic zone, the prevalence of marine snow changes with seasonal fluctuations in photosynthetic activity and ocean currents. Marine snow can be an important food source for organisms living in the aphotic zone, particularly for organisms that live very deep in the water column.
Marine chemistry, also known as ocean chemistry or chemical oceanography, is influenced by plate tectonics and seafloor spreading, turbidity currents, sediments, pH levels, atmospheric constituents, metamorphic activity, and ecology. The field of chemical oceanography studies the chemistry of marine environments including the influences of different variables. Marine life has adapted to the chemistries unique to earth's oceans, and marine ecosystems are sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry.
The oceanic carbon cycle is composed of processes that exchange carbon between various pools within the ocean as well as between the atmosphere, Earth interior, and the seafloor. The carbon cycle is a result of many interacting forces across multiple time and space scales that circulates carbon around the planet, ensuring that carbon is available globally. The Oceanic carbon cycle is a central process to the global carbon cycle and contains both inorganic carbon and organic carbon. Part of the marine carbon cycle transforms carbon between non-living and living matter.
Particulate organic matter (POM) is a fraction of total organic matter operationally defined as that which does not pass through a filter pore size that typically ranges in size from 0.053 to 2 millimeters.
Deborah K. Steinberg is an American Antarctic biological oceanographer who works on interdisciplinary oceanographic research programs. Steinberg's research focuses on the role that zooplankton play in marine food webs and the global carbon cycle, and how these small drifting animals are affected by changes in climate.
Roberta Marinelli is an oceanographer who started her position as Dean of the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University in 2016.
Cindy Lee is a retired Distinguished Professor known for her research characterizing the compounds that comprise marine organic matter.
Particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) can be contrasted with dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), the other form of inorganic carbon found in the ocean. These distinctions are important in chemical oceanography. Particulate inorganic carbon is sometimes called suspended inorganic carbon. In operational terms, it is defined as the inorganic carbon in particulate form that is too large to pass through the filter used to separate dissolved inorganic carbon.
Jacqueline M. Grebmeier is an American ecologist who specializes in polar biological oceanography.
The Martin curve is a power law used by oceanographers to describe the export to the ocean floor of particulate organic carbon (POC). The curve is controlled with two parameters: the reference depth in the water column, and a remineralisation parameter which is a measure of the rate at which the vertical flux of POC attenuates. It is named after the American oceanographer John Martin.
Phyllis Jean Stabeno is a physical oceanographer known for her research on the movement of water in polar regions. She has led award-winning research projects in the Arctic and was noted for a distinguished scientific career by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Hilairy Ellen Hartnett is professor at Arizona State University known for her work on biogeochemical processes in modern and paleo-environments.
Elizabeth A. Canuel is a chemical oceanographer known for her work on organic carbon cycling in aquatic environments. She is the Chancellor Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary and is an elected fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry.
Helle Ploug is marine scientist known for her work on particles in seawater. She is a professor at the University of Gothenburg, and was named a fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in 2017.
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