Oceans of the World
What is the Pacific Ocean?
This is the largest ocean on Earth.
What is the Sunlight Zone?
This topmost zone has lots of sunlight, allowing plants and most animals to live here.
What are ocean currents?
The ocean helps control global temperatures by moving this around the planet.
What is the Tropical zone?
This ocean region is warm and found near the equator.
Animals in the Sunlight Zone rely on this to produce food.
Sunlight
What is the Atlantic Ocean?
This ocean lies mostly between Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
What is the Twilight Zone?
This zone has some light but not enough for plants to grow but animals still live here.
What is a carbon sink?
The ocean stores carbon dioxide from the air in water and organisms. It acts as this.
What is the Temperate zone?
This ocean region has moderate temperatures and is between the tropics and polar areas.
Since plants can’t survive here, animals in the Twilight Zone must do this to survive.
Hunt or eat other animals
What is the Indian Ocean?
This ocean is located mainly south of Asia and between Africa and Australia.
What is the Midnight Zone?
There is no light here and animals often glow and move slowly.
What are phytoplankton?
Tiny plants in the ocean called this produce oxygen through photosynthesis.
What is the Polar zone?
This ocean region is very cold and located near the poles.
Animals in the Midnight Zone often do this to attract prey or mates.
Glow or bioluminesce
What is the Southern Ocean?
This ocean surrounds Antarctica.
What is the Abyss?
Extremely dark and cold, only a few special animals survive in this zone.
What is buffering or stabilizing?
Because water heats and cools slowly, the ocean helps to do this to Earth’s temperatures.
What is temperature?
Tropical, temperate, and polar zones are classified based on this ocean property.
Only a few animals live in the Abyss because of these extreme conditions. What are these conditions?
Darkness, cold, and high pressure
What is the Arctic Ocean?
This is the smallest and coldest ocean, located around the North Pole.
What are the Trenches?
The deepest part of the ocean with crushing pressure.
What is the circulation of ocean currents?
This is the main way the ocean transports heat and regulates climate globally.
What does the temperature difference in this zone affect?
Plants and Animals
The Trenches’ high pressure forces animals to have these special traits.
Adaptations for extreme pressure and darkness?