A Sea Not Full

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Its objectives include developing and maintaining a regulatory framework for shipping, maritime safety, environmental concerns, legal matters, technical co-operation and maritime security. Within this area, the coastal nation has sole exploitation rights over all natural resources. The "continental shelf" is the natural prolongation of the land territory to the continental margin 's outer edge, or nautical miles from the coastal state's baseline, whichever is greater. Here the coastal nation has the exclusive right to harvest minerals and also living resources "attached" to the seabed.

Control of the sea is important to the security of a maritime nation, and the naval blockade of a port can be used to cut off food and supplies in time of war.

10 Replies to “The sea is full of life, but not quite that full”

Battles have been fought on the sea for more than 3, years. In about B. Battle of Salamis , the Greek general Themistocles trapped the far larger fleet of the Persian king Xerxes in a narrow channel and attacked vigorously, destroying Persian ships for the loss of 40 Greek vessels. With steam and the industrial production of steel plate came greatly increased firepower in the shape of the dreadnought battleships armed with long-range guns.

Submarines became important in naval warfare in World War I, when German submarines, known as U-boats , sank nearly 5, Allied merchant ships, [] including however the RMS Lusitania , so helping to bring the United States into the war. Some of these are kept permanently on patrol. Sailing ships or packets carried mail overseas, one of the earliest being the Dutch service to Batavia in the s. Later, scheduled services were offered but the time journeys took depended much on the weather.

When steamships replaced sailing vessels, ocean-going liners took over the task of carrying people. By the beginning of the twentieth century, crossing the Atlantic took about five days and shipping companies competed to own the largest and fastest vessels. The Blue Riband was an unofficial accolade given to the fastest liner crossing the Atlantic in regular service.

The Mauretania held the title with The great liners were comfortable but expensive in fuel and staff. The age of the trans-Atlantic liners waned as cheap intercontinental flights became available. In , a regular scheduled air service between New York and Paris taking seven hours doomed the Atlantic ferry service to oblivion. One by one the vessels were laid up, some were scrapped, others became cruise ships for the leisure industry and still others floating hotels. Some may be fleeing persecution but most are economic migrants attempting to reach countries where they believe their prospects are brighter.

Maritime trade has existed for millennia. The Ptolemaic dynasty had developed trade with India using the Red Sea ports and in the first millennium BC the Arabs , Phoenicians, Israelites and Indians traded in luxury goods such as spices, gold, and precious stones. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, European trade dwindled but it continued to flourish among the kingdoms of Africa, the Middle East, India, China and southeastern Asia. Nowadays, large quantities of goods are transported by sea, especially across the Atlantic and around the Pacific Rim.

A major trade route passes through the Pillars of Hercules , across the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean and through the Straits of Malacca ; much trade also passes through the English Channel. Over 60 percent of the world's container traffic is conveyed on the top twenty trade routes. There are two main kinds of freight, bulk cargo and break bulk or general cargo, most of which is now transported in containers. Commodities in the form of liquids, powder or particles are carried loose in the holds of bulk carriers and include oil, grain, coal, ore, scrap metal, sand and gravel.

Break bulk cargo is usually manufactured goods and is transported in packages, often stacked on pallets. Before the arrival of containerization in the s, these goods were loaded, transported and unloaded piecemeal.

Fish and other fishery products are among the most important sources of protein and other nutrients that are essential for a balanced diet and good health. Modern fishing vessels include fishing trawlers with a small crew, stern trawlers, purse seiners, long-line factory vessels and large factory ships which are designed to stay at sea for weeks, processing and freezing great quantities of fish. The equipment used to capture the fish may be purse seines , other seines , trawls , dredges, gillnets and long-lines and the fish species most frequently targeted are herring , cod , anchovy , tuna , flounder , mullet , squid and salmon.

Overexploitation itself has become a serious concern; it does not only cause the depletion of fish stocks, but also substantially reduce the population of predatory fish populations. Artisan fishing methods include rod and line, harpoons, skin diving, traps, throw nets and drag nets. Traditional fishing boats are powered by paddle, wind or outboard motors and operate in near-shore waters.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is encouraging the development of local fisheries to provide food security to coastal communities and help alleviate poverty. About six hundred species of plants and animals were cultured, some for use in seeding wild populations. The animals raised included finfish , aquatic reptiles , crustaceans, molluscs, sea cucumbers , sea urchins , sea squirts and jellyfish.

Mesh enclosures for finfish can be suspended in the open seas, cages can be used in more sheltered waters or ponds can be refreshed with water at each high tide. Shrimps can be reared in shallow ponds connected to the open sea.

Oysters can be reared on trays or in mesh tubes. Sea cucumbers can be ranched on the seabed. In the s, disease wiped out China's farmed Farrer's scallop and white shrimp and required their replacement by other species. Use of the sea for leisure developed in the nineteenth century, and became a significant industry in the twentieth century.

Humans enjoy venturing into the sea; children paddle and splash in the shallows and many people take pleasure in bathing and relaxing on the beach. This was not always the case, with sea bathing becoming the vogue in Europe in the 18th century after Dr. William Buchan advocated the practice for health reasons. Other marine water sports include kite surfing , where a power kite propels a manned board across the water, [] windsurfing , where the power is provided by a fixed, manoeuvrable sail [] and water skiing , where a powerboat is used to pull a skier. Beneath the surface, freediving is necessarily restricted to shallow descents.

Other useful equipment includes fins and snorkels , and scuba equipment allows underwater breathing and hence a longer time can be spent beneath the surface. Deeper dives can be made with specialised equipment and training. The sea offers a very large supply of energy carried by ocean waves , tides , salinity differences, and ocean temperature differences which can be harnessed to generate electricity. Tidal power uses generators to produce electricity from tidal flows, sometimes by using a dam to store and then release seawater.

The Rance barrage, 1 kilometre 0. The large and highly variable energy of waves gives them enormous destructive capability, making affordable and reliable wave machines problematic to develop. It was soon damaged by waves, then destroyed by a storm. Offshore wind power is captured by wind turbines placed out at sea; it has the advantage that wind speeds are higher than on land, though wind farms are more costly to construct offshore. Electricity power stations are often located on the coast or beside an estuary so that the sea can be used as a heat sink.

A colder heat sink enables more efficient power generation, which is important for expensive nuclear power plants in particular. The seabed contains enormous reserves of minerals which can be exploited by dredging. This has advantages over land-based mining in that equipment can be built at specialised shipyards and infrastructure costs are lower. Disadvantages include problems caused by waves and tides, the tendency for excavations to silt up and the washing away of spoil heaps. There is a risk of coastal erosion and environmental damage.

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Seafloor massive sulphide deposits are potential sources of silver , gold , copper , lead and zinc and trace metals since their discovery in the s. They form when geothermally heated water is emitted from deep sea hydrothermal vents known as "black smokers". The ores are of high quality but prohibitively costly to extract. There are large deposits of petroleum , as oil and natural gas , in rocks beneath the seabed. Offshore platforms and drilling rigs extract the oil or gas and store it for transport to land.

Offshore oil and gas production can be difficult due to the remote, harsh environment. Animals may be disorientated by seismic waves used to locate deposits, probably causing the beaching of whales. Toxic substances such as mercury , lead and arsenic may be released. The infrastructure may cause damage, and oil may be spilt. In the Pacific these may cover up to 30 percent of the deep ocean floor.

What's the difference between an ocean and a sea?

The minerals precipitate from seawater and grow very slowly. Their commercial extraction for nickel was investigated in the s but abandoned in favour of more convenient sources. In deeper waters, mobile seafloor crawlers are used and the deposits are pumped to a vessel above. In Namibia, more diamonds are now collected from marine sources than by conventional methods on land.

The sea holds enormous quantities of valuable dissolved minerals. Bromine , accumulated after being leached from the land, is economically recovered from the Dead Sea, where it occurs at 55, parts per million ppm. Desalination is the technique of removing salts from seawater to leave fresh water suitable for drinking or irrigation. The two main processing methods, vacuum distillation and reverse osmosis , use large quantities of energy.

Desalination is normally only undertaken where fresh water from other sources is in short supply or energy is plentiful, as in the excess heat generated by power stations. The brine produced as a by-product contains some toxic materials and is returned to the sea. Many substances enter the sea as a result of human activities. Combustion products are transported in the air and deposited into the sea by precipitation. Industrial outflows and sewage contribute heavy metals , pesticides , PCBs , disinfectants , household cleaning products and other synthetic chemicals. These become concentrated in the surface film and in marine sediment, especially estuarine mud.

The result of all this contamination is largely unknown because of the large number of substances involved and the lack of information on their biological effects. They are cumulative toxins and are passed up the food chain. Much floating plastic rubbish does not biodegrade , instead disintegrating over time and eventually breaking down to the molecular level. Rigid plastics may float for years. Turtles and whales have been found with plastic bags and fishing line in their stomachs. Microplastics may sink, threatening filter feeders on the seabed. Most oil pollution in the sea comes from cities and industry.

It can clog the feathers of sea birds, reducing their insulating effect and the birds' buoyancy, and be ingested when they preen themselves in an attempt to remove the contaminant. Marine mammals are less seriously affected but may be chilled through the removal of their insulation, blinded, dehydrated or poisoned.

Benthic invertebrates are swamped when the oil sinks, fish are poisoned and the food chain is disrupted. In the short term, oil spills result in wildlife populations being decreased and unbalanced, leisure activities being affected and the livelihoods of people dependant on the sea being devastated. In the Gulf of Mexico, where oil-eating bacteria are already present, they take only a few days to consume spilt oil. Run-off of fertilisers from agricultural land is a major source of pollution in some areas and the discharge of raw sewage has a similar effect.

The extra nutrients provided by these sources can cause excessive plant growth. Nitrogen is often the limiting factor in marine systems, and with added nitrogen, algal blooms and red tides can lower the oxygen level of the water and kill marine animals. Such events have created dead zones in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

The Irish Sea was contaminated by radioactive caesium from the former Sellafield nuclear fuel processing plant [] and nuclear accidents may also cause radioactive material to seep into the sea, as did the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in The dumping of waste including oil, noxious liquids, sewage and garbage at sea is governed by international law. The London Convention is a United Nations agreement to control ocean dumping which had been ratified by 89 countries by 8 June Several nomadic indigenous groups in Maritime Southeast Asia live in boats and derive nearly all they need from the sea.

The indigenous peoples of the Arctic such as the Chukchi , Inuit , Inuvialuit and Yup'iit hunt marine mammals including seals and whales, [] and the Torres Strait Islanders of Australia include ownership of the Great Barrier Reef among their possessions. They live a traditional life on the islands involving hunting, fishing, gardening and trading with neighbouring peoples in Papua and mainland Aboriginal Australians.

The sea appears in human culture in contradictory ways, as both powerful but serene and as beautiful but dangerous. The sea and ships have been depicted in art ranging from simple drawings on the walls of huts in Lamu [] to seascapes by Joseph Turner. Music too has been inspired by the ocean, sometimes by composers who lived or worked near the shore and saw its many different aspects. Sea shanties , songs that were chanted by mariners to help them perform arduous tasks, have been woven into compositions and impressions in music have been created of calm waters, crashing waves and storms at sea.

As a symbol, the sea has for centuries played a role in literature , poetry and dreams. Sometimes it is there just as a gentle background but often it introduces such themes as storm, shipwreck, battle, hardship, disaster, the dashing of hopes and death. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ocean - Wikipedia

For other uses, see Sea disambiguation and The Sea disambiguation. Oceanography and Physical oceanography. History of navigation , History of cartography , Maritime history , Ancient maritime history , and Ocean exploration. Fishing , Whaling , Aquaculture , and Seaweed farming. Cruising maritime , Sailing , and Recreational boat fishing. Marine energy and Offshore wind power. Offshore drilling and Deep sea mining. Nautical portal Water portal. One definition is that a sea is a sub-division of an ocean, which means that it must have oceanic basin crust on its floor. This definition accepts the Caspian as a sea because it was once part of an ancient ocean.

Experiments to recreate the conditions of the lower mantle suggest it may contain still more water as well, as much as five times the mass of water present in the world's oceans. Gradually, they fall in with other waves travelling at similar speed—-where different waves are in phase they reinforce each other, and where out of phase they are reduced.

Eventually, a regular pattern of high and low waves or swell is developed that remains constant as it travels out across the ocean. Retrieved 13 March National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 19 April Encyclopedia of the Oceans. The Glossary of the Mapping Sciences. Maritime Regimes for Regional Cooperation". The Water Cycle " in Ocean Explorer. Retrieved 10 September Anati, David March International Journal of Salt Lake Research. Retrieved 3 February Archived from the original on 18 April Retrieved 17 April Deep-Sea Research Part I: Retrieved 16 September Explicit use of et al.

Retrieved 6 July Retrieved 12 October Retrieved 21 April Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Wind Generated Ocean Waves. Naval Postgraduate School Monterey. Retrieved 18 April Retrieved 3 October Earth and Space Sciences. Retrieved 21 September Retrieved 4 October Proceedings of the Royal Society A. Bureau of Meteorology of the Australian Government. An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment.

Retrieved 8 September Introduction to Geophysical Fluid Dynamics: Physical and Numerical Aspects. Retrieved 20 April Retrieved 12 September See also the commentary about this explanation in Lagrange, E. The Encyclopedia of Earth. Retrieved 20 September University of California Museum of Paleontology. Retrieved 24 September Principles of Physical Geography. The Penguin Dictionary of Physical Geography. Retrieved 18 September Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level. Archived from the original on 6 July Waterbodies That Don't Flow to the Sea". Water from the Mountains into the Sea.

United Nations Environment Programme. Retrieved 9 October Carbon Emissions and Acidification". Principles for Clinical Medicine. Ocean biogeochemistry under global change". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Department of Natural Environmental Studies: Retrieved 26 September Fisheries and Food from the Sea".

Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Ocean. Retrieved 22 April Retrieved 11 July Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Understanding and Protecting Marine Biodiversity.

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Retrieved 14 July The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. A Derivative of the Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Retrieved 17 September The Polynesians — Prehistory of an Island People. Molecular Biology and Evolution. Archived from the original on 23 July Retrieved 5 March The Phoenicians , p. Retrieved 13 September Retrieved 14 September Retrieved 15 September Oceanographer and pioneer of deep-sea exploration". Retrieved 5 July Retrieved 25 September Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The sea is full of life, but not quite that full

Retrieved 8 May The Battle of Salamis: The naval battle of Tsushima, the ultimate contest of the — Russo-Japanese War, was one of the most decisive sea battles in history. An Analysis of the Fighting. A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham: A Twentieth-century Naval Leader. Don't Tread on Me: A Year History of America at War. Three Rivers Press Crown Forum. The Sinking of the Lusitania. Don't Tread on Me. The Last Best Hope, Volume 2: From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom — California Center for Military History.

Archived from the original on 28 July Calendar of state papers, domestic series, of the reign of Charles II: Retrieved 11 September Retrieved 21 August The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Cross-Cultural Trade in World History. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Retrieved 25 April Retrieved 24 April Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Retrieved 23 April Increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty alleviation and food security. Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper. Archived from the original on 1 February What will we be eating in 20 years' time?

Netherlands Business Support Office Dalian , In Steele, John H. Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. International Council of Marine Industry Associations. Global Challenges in Recreational Fisheries. John Wiley and Sons. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Retrieved 4 July American Journal of Sports Medicine. Retrieved 14 October Archived from the original on 30 June Hansa International Maritime Journal. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition. Filtering that much water takes a really big net and a really big research vessel. I was stunned to see my photo inaccurately cited and described on Mission Blue facebook recently and then learn that it had been previously published several times earlier.

Mission Blue is correcting the misinformation which I appreciate. I do however, appreciate that there is so much interest. I hope those who were turned off of swimming in or exploring the ocean will be relieved and want to keep exploring and learning about the ocean. I was not aware of one of these images going around like this before I saw it on Mission Blue and I was surprised because the composition and abundance was just like what I had been photographing in the Gulf of Mexico from IK liter open ocean water and thought the claims of being a drop of ocean water misleading and I really thought it was my image.

After that I found out about your article and I had the same concerns about people being freaked out. Now I see the before mentioned photographer as having copyright this to his credit many times. I look over his images most are of much greater quality and they are absolutely stunning and I absolutely adore them. I think this is very confusing. Perhaps he had similar images and just confused them. Perhaps I am the one with similar images and I am confused. I have to go way back thru storage to check because the images I have with me now from back then are only similar and not exactly the same match as I thought.

I really did think it was the same as one of mine but now I am not sure. Also I am not so sure how he could take such similar image with same species compositions and abundance as I was getting but I guess that is a possibility. But that is very strange and hard for me to get a handle on since I was filtering 1K liters way off shore and he was using a dip net. Since I am no longer sure anymore without finding the exact matching photo I am asking Mission Blue to return the credit as they had it and I do not seek to cause any problems for the previously mentioned photographer.

I see no reason to think that Liittschwager somehow is passing off your photo as his own, though I understand how it must be distressing and confusing. But with a cast of millions and more plotlines than a daytime soap opera, the stories can be a bit difficult to follow. I had a professor at Scripps who would profess not to believe in fish since they were so rare compared to the really abundant life in the ocean — microbes. A short film in construction paper What actually happened in the sea during the solar eclipse! Oil hydrocarbons ingested by GOM plankton communities.

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