Protecting Marine Resources

In my life, marine wild life does not play a huge factor. I do not often go to the beach and I also go in the ocean very seldom. I have been fishing a few times before, so I have interacted with fish on separate occasions. As far as pets, I do not own any marine wild life such as fish, turtles, lobsters, etc. Another reason that marine wild life does not play a huge factor in my life is because I do not eat any seafood. I said that I have fished before, but I never eat anything that I catch, plus my family doesn't really eat seafood either.

I feel that the use of marine resources has a decent impact on me. The part about using marine resources that bothers me the most is capturing any marine mammals and keeping out of their habitat. For example, I am bothered that Sea World would take it upon them to capture Killer Whales just so that they can do pointless tricks with them for entertainment. What makes this worse is the fact that they have false facts about almost everything they say about the whales. They act as if it is okay to take a whale away from its family and put it in some large pool where it is powerless. This is a cruel act and abuse towards marine wild life.

Based on what I have already discussed, I will continue to take actions to protect marine resources for the future. As always, I will continue to throw away all trash that I have instead of throwing it on the ground. This means that any plastic or any other object that could have been littered now wont end up in the ocean where marine mammals could choke on it. Not only could I continue to not litter, I could also prevent others from doing the same. By this I mean I can tell people who I see litter to pick up their trash and throw it away. I also could pick up any trash/litter that I come across so that It does not end up anywhere in the ocean.

Bio/Geo Timeline

The point of studying the bio/geo timeline was to have an understanding of what existed in the earlier periods of time on our planet. The time period that I studied with my group was the carboniferous period. During this time, many coal beds were beginning to form. Terrestrial life was also established during this period whereas amphibians were dominant land vertebrates, which evolved into reptiles. At this time, many forests covered a large amount of land on the planet and this eventually formed coal beds.A change in climate caused a minor marine and and terrestrial extinction event. During the later half of the period, the planet faced many glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea.

In order to show my full understanding of the carboniferous period, I had a lot of contributions made. One thing I did was make the 150 word summary of the carboniferous period, which gave the class and myself a better understanding of everything. I also made the fossil that had to do with the period. It was a carving of a fern, which is a weed-like plant that was around during this time.

Alternate assignment

While watching the the seal in a first person point of view, it was really interesting in a variety of ways. From this angle, you can see what its like when the seal is roaming around the tank. It also was interesting to see how trained the seal was. It seemed to know whenever the trainer wanted it to come up to the surface, which makes me wonder if it was its sense of smell, hearing, or if it had really good vision.

 The first thing that interests is why the orange filefish got its name when it consists of mainly yellow and black. In a way, they are like a flounder because they have a very thin, flat body. I found it really neat to hear that these fish tilt their head down when they are swimming because I do not understand why this would benefit this species in any way.

Although I have seen penguins do many things before, I can not stop thinking about how they are such good climbers with small arms and legs. I found it really interesting that penguins are territorial and return to their natural habitats after they migrated. I guess I don not know as much about penguins as I thought I did because I believed that all penguins were adapted to really cold weather.

Veterinary staff were examining pneumonia that a turtle had. One of the procedures they used is called bronchoscopy which is where they inserted  a scope through the trachea in order to reach the lung. By doing so, the veterinarians can see if the tissue is diseased or not. They did a "tracheal wash" in order to obtain the bacteria/fungus and get a sample of it to see if they can find an antibiotic or anti fungal to fight it off. While I observed the photos of a normal trachea, I noticed that there were two bronchi: one led to the right lung and the other to the left lung. During the bronchoscopy, there seemed to be a significant difference between the normal trachea and the turtles right lung. The turtles right lung seems OK because I can see the bronchi, but I also notice a lot of smaller holes which concerns me.

Seaweed

Seaweeds are a diverse group of organisms that live in the Earth's oceans. They are known as algae which are not plants or animals. Seaweeds are photosynthetic, which means that energy from sunlight into materials needed for growth. Instead of roots, seaweeds have hold fasts which attach them to the seafloor. Their stem is called a stipe which supports the rest of the plant. The leaves of the seaweed are called blades which provide a large surface for the absorption of sunlight. Most seaweeds have floats which photosynthetic structures of the seaweed buoyant so they can absorb energy from the sun. The entire plant body of the seaweed is known as the thallus. Seaweeds are a food source for marine animals and are nutritional base for some food webs. They also provide shelter and a home many fishes, birds, and marine mammals.

 What are diatoms?

Diatoms are photosynthesizing algae

To what division and class diatoms assigned?

Division Chrysophyta, Class Bacillariophyceae

What are the major characteristics of diatoms?

 Diatoms are commonly between 20-200 microns in diameter or length. The cell may be solitary or colonial 

Describe the life cycle of a diatom. 

When a cell divides each new cell takes as its epitheca a valve of the parent frustule, and within ten to twenty minutes builds its own hypotheca; this process may occur between one and eight times per day.

List five human uses for diatoms. 

Diatoms reduce high blood pressure, clean the human colon, lowers cholesterol, reduce one's weight, ad strengthen hair, nails, gums, and teeth.

Explain the role of diatoms in the carbon cycle.

They reduce the amount of CO2 in the air during photosynthesis. 

Relationships Among Marine Organisms

"Marine Food Web"

During the food web activity that my class did, I played the role of the benthic fish. This is an organism that lives at the bottom of the ocean. This organism eats crabs, worms, shrimp, mollusks. Larger fish, such as haddock and catfish mainly eat benthos as well as penguins. If this organism were to disappear, it would not affect and other organism that is at a lower spot on the food chain. This is because nothing at the bottom of the food chain will eat benthic fish, only organisms that are higher on the food chain will. The organisms that will be affected include penguins, whales, sharks, etc. This means that the neuston ecosystem will not be affected. 

"Phytoplankton"

Phytoplankton are very important to marine food webs because they are its foundation. They are the primary producers, meaning that everything feeds off of them or off of organisms that do. Neuston refers to organisms that float on top of water or live under the surface. These organisms consist of beetles, spiders, bacteria, protozoans, and certain species of fish. The neuston ecosystem covers up about 

Final Assignment Essay

During this semester, it has been a pleasure to take oceanography to have a better understanding of the physical and biological properties of the sea. Because of this class and its various assignments, I have learned a lot and know what I need to do to improve my understanding. For example, I have a better understanding of continental drift. I now know that there are six major plates on Earth that have broken up over the years. Very slowly over time, there was one large continent that broke into six and they slowly drift over time  (continental drift). I also have a better understanding of winds on the Earth's atmosphere. The Coriolis effect is when a  whereby a mass moving in a rotating system experiences a force acting perpendicular to the direction of motion and to the axis of rotation. What actually happens is that global winds blow diagonally. The Coriolis effect influences wind direction around the world in this way: in the Northern Hemisphere it curves winds to the right; in the Southern Hemisphere it curves them left. Doldrums are areas with no winds because winds because heat rises. With global warming, there will be a lot more heat, which will rise, and eventually cause their to be less wind.

Thanks to the assignment "which way the winds blow," I now understand what causes winds and the directions in which they move. I was also very informed when I learned about how to study the ocean. There are many traditional ways of studying the ocean, but it seems as though none can study each of its aspects. For example, going out to sea with a ship is good for some research, but not all aspects. As well as using ships, satellites and other equipment can only work for some areas and not all. Maybe a new system is needed for ocean studies to effectively work in the 21st century. It looks like this is a job for the Regional Cabled Observatory initiative, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. This system will gather and stream data and real-time video from 12 sensors under the ocean, which will inform scientists and the general public. These sensors will be used for monitoring pressure, oxygen levels, deep sea currents, seismic activity, underwater audio, etc. At three sites, Hydrate Ridge, Axial Seamount, and Endurance Array Newport Line, there will be fiber optic cables that form. This system may give everybody better data and become the worlds largest underwater observatory. Honestly,I never thought about how the ocean was studied which is why these are really interesting methods to me.

Build a Hydrometer Questions

1. Define the term salinity.

 Salinity is the total quantity of concentration of all dissolved inorganic solids.

2. If you add salt to a water solution, will a hydrometer float higher or lower in the water? Explain your choice.It will float higher because the salt makes the hydrometer more buoyant because the water is denser.

3. What effect does the addition of salt have on the properties of water?

The addition of salt makes the water more dense.

4. Is it easier to float in the ocean than in a swimming pool? Explain why or why not.

It is easier to float on the ocean because the water is dense and it depends where you are.

5. Define the term density.

Density is a measure of a quantity such as mass

6. The salinity of seawater is also affected by the temperature of a body of water. Explain how temperature causes differences in the salinity of water.

Cold water is more dense where as the opposite is true about warm water. This means cool ocean water is denser than warm ocean water. It is denser because the molecules of the liquid are moving slower.