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Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor.These particles either have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the sea, mainly by rivers but also by dust carried by wind and by the flow of glaciers into the sea, or they are biogenic deposits from marine organisms or from ...
Contributing between 1 and 10% of total ocean primary productivity, 200 species of coccolithophores live in the ocean, and under the right conditions they can form large blooms. These large bloom formations are a driving force for the export of calcium carbonate from the surface to the deep ocean in what is sometimes called “Coccolith rain”.
Siliceous oozes are composed of skeletons made from opal silica SiO 2 ·nH 2 O, as opposed to calcareous oozes, which are made from skeletons of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ·nH 2 O) organisms (i.e. coccolithophores). Silica (Si) is a bioessential element and is efficiently recycled in the marine environment through the silica cycle. [3]
These biogeochemical cycles are the pathways chemical substances and elements move through within the marine environment. In addition, substances and elements can be imported into or exported from the marine environment. These imports and exports can occur as exchanges with the atmosphere above, the ocean floor below, or as runoff from the land.
It involves medium to long-term geochemical processes belonging to the rock cycle. The exchange between the ocean and atmosphere can take centuries, and the weathering of rocks can take millions of years. Carbon in the ocean precipitates to the ocean floor where it can form sedimentary rock and be subducted into the Earth's mantle.
A cobble encrusted with halite evaporated from the Dead Sea, Israel (with Israeli ₪1 coin [diameter 18mm] for scale). An evaporite (/ ɪ ˈ v æ p ə ˌ r aɪ t /) is a water-soluble sedimentary mineral deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. [1]
Marine chemistry, also known as ocean chemistry or chemical oceanography, is the study of the chemical composition and processes of the world’s oceans, including the interactions between seawater, the atmosphere, the seafloor, and marine organisms. [2]
Marine plants can be found in intertidal zones and shallow waters, such as seagrasses like eelgrass and turtle grass, Thalassia. These plants have adapted to the high salinity of the ocean environment. Light is only able to penetrate the top 200 metres (660 ft) so this is the only part of the sea where plants can grow. [77]