Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Most of the ocean is blue in color, but in some places the ocean is blue-green, green, or even yellow to brown. [2] Blue ocean color is a result of several factors. First, water preferentially absorbs red light, which means that blue light remains and is reflected back out of the water.
Milky sea effect off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean. Milky seas (Somali: Kaluunka iftiima; English: Milky seas), sometimes confused with mareel, are a luminous phenomenon in the ocean in which large areas of seawater (up to 100,000 km 2 or 39,000 sq mi [1]) appear to glow diffusely and continuously (in varying shades of blue).
Organisms in the abyssal zone rely on the natural processes of higher ocean layers. When animals from higher ocean levels die, their carcasses occasionally drift down to the abyssal zone, where organisms in the deep can feed on them. When a whale carcass falls down to the abyssal zone, this is called a whale fall. The carcass of the whale can ...
Most of the ocean is blue in color, but in some places the ocean is blue-green, green, or even yellow to brown. [64] Blue ocean color is a result of several factors. First, water preferentially absorbs red light, which means that blue light remains and is reflected back out of the water.
The red, orange, and yellow wavelengths of light are absorbed so the remaining light seen is composed of green, cyan, and blue wavelengths. This is the main reason the ocean's color is cyan. The relative contribution of reflected skylight and the light scattered back from the depths is strongly dependent on observation angle. [8]
The deep blue color is caused by the high transparency of water and bright white carbonate sand. Blue light is the most enduring part of the spectrum; other parts of the spectrum—red, yellow, and finally green—are absorbed during their path through water, but blue light manages to reach the white sand and return upon reflection.
Small silt particles may also absorb blue light, further shifting the colour of water away from blue when there are high concentrations of suspended particles. [12] The ocean can be divided into depth layers depending on the amount of light penetration, as discussed in pelagic zone. The upper 200 metres is referred to as the photic or euphotic ...
All particles scatter light to some extent, including plankton, minerals, and detritus. Particle size effects how much scattering happens at different colors; for example, very small particles scatter light exponentially more in the blue colors than other colors, which is why the ocean and the sky are generally blue (called Rayleigh scattering ...