Unique Nature of Water
This type of chemical bond holds the hydrogen and oxygen atoms together inside a single water molecule.
What is a covalent bond?
Scientists lower this black-and-white disk into the water to check water clarity.
What is a Secchi disk?
This is the average salinity, or saltiness, of the ocean.
What is 35 parts per thousand?
Carbon starts as a gas in this layer of the Earth before dissolving into the ocean.
What is the atmosphere?
This top layer (0 to 200 meters) gets the most sunlight and holds most ocean plants and animals.
What is the epipelagic zone?
This weak bond forms when water molecules attract each other because of tiny positive and negative charges.
What is a hydrogen bond?
Out of all the colors of light, this color travels the deepest into the ocean.
What is blue?
Combined, these two specific ions make up about 85% of the dissolved ions in seawater.
What are sodium and chloride?
When the ocean absorbs extra carbon dioxide, it mixes with water to create this specific acid.
What is carbonic acid?
Also called the twilight zone, this layer (200 to 1,000 meters) has no plants because there is too little light.
What is the mesopelagic zone?
Water gets this nickname because it can dissolve more substances than almost any other liquid.
What is the universal solvent?
Water pressure increases by one atmosphere for every increase of this many meters in depth.
What is 10 meters?
Positive ions like sodium and magnesium mostly enter the ocean from the weathering of these on land.
What are rocks?
Acidic water "steals" this important ion, making it hard for marine animals to build shells.
What is a carbonate ion?
Known as the midnight zone (1,000 to 4,000 meters), creatures here make their own light using this process.
What is bioluminescence?
Water has a very high amount of this, which keeps ocean temperatures stable and protects sea life.
What is heat capacity?
Because water is denser than air, sound travels about this many times faster in water than it does in air.
What is 4.5 times faster?
Negative ions like chloride and sulfide enter the ocean from volcanoes and these deep-sea vents.
What are hydrothermal vents?
Animals most at risk from ocean acidification have shells made of this calcium compound.
What is calcium carbonate?
Spanning 4,000 to 6,000 meters, this layer is the largest environment on Earth and is called the abyss.
What is the abyssopelagic zone?
Unlike most substances, water does this when it freezes, which causes ice to float.
What is to become less dense?
This special ocean channel allows low-frequency sound waves to travel for thousands of kilometers without stopping.
What is the SOFAR channel?
Between temperature and salinity, ocean density is usually controlled more by this factor because it changes much more.
What is temperature?
High CO2 levels can weaken this internal defense system in marine animals and lower their metabolism.
What is the immune system?
Reaching down to 11,000 meters, this deepest zone includes ocean trenches like the Mariana Trench.
What is the hadalpelagic zone?