A discovery by Danny VG in habitat Garden on 09.06.2021. Spilonota ocellana (Spilonota ocellana) is a species of insect. Post your nature observations of Animal sightings in the NatureSpots App, too! #NatureSpots #Animal #Garden
A discovery by Danny VG in habitat Garden on 09.06.2021. Spilonota ocellana (Spilonota ocellana) is a species of insect. Post your nature observations of Animal sightings in the NatureSpots App, too! #NatureSpots #Animal #Garden
A discovery by Danny VG in habitat Garden on 09.06.2021. Coccinella septempunctata (Coccinella septempunctata) is a species of beetle. Post your nature observations of Animal sightings in the NatureSpots App, too! #NatureSpots #Animal #Garden
A discovery by Danny VG in habitat Garden on 09.06.2021. Cardinal beetle (Pyrochroa coccinea) is a species of insect. Post your nature observations of Animal sightings in the NatureSpots App, too! #NatureSpots #Animal #Garden
"Blühbeginn bei den wilden Disteln!
Das wird toll wenn die Blüten sich öffnen und viele Hummeln und Bienen kommen.
#stadtnatur @StadtWien #beet #disteln #blüte" says Ka vonSeiten in habitat Flowerbed on 09.06.2021.. Post your nature observations of Urban and Garden sightings in the NatureSpots App, too! #NatureSpots #UrbanandGarden #Flowerbed
The polar ice caps cover the North and South Poles and their surrounding territory, including the entire continent of Antarctica in the south, the Arctic Ocean, the northern part of Greenland, parts of northern Canada, and bits of Siberia and Scandinavia also in the north. Polar ice caps are dome-shaped sheets of ice that feed ice to other glacial formations, such as ice sheets, ice fields, and ice islands. They remain frozen year-round, and they serve as sources for glaciers that feed ice into the polar seas in the form of icebergs . Because the polar ice caps are very cold (temperatures in Antarctica have been measured to −126.8°F [−88°C]) and exist for a long time, the caps serve as deep-freezes for geologic information that can be studied by scientists. Ice cores drawn from these regions contain important data for both geologists and historians about paleoclimatology and give clues about the effects human activities are currently having on the world.
Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Polar ice cap." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 14 May. 2021. Web. 28 Jun. 2021.
Oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. The few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean and Macquarie Island in the Pacific.
Arcs
One type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring. Examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles and the South Sandwich Islands.
Oceanic Rifts
Another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples: Iceland, which is the world's second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. Both are in the Atlantic.
Hotspots
A third type of volcanic oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above it, so a chain of islands results as the plate drifts. Over long periods of time, this type of island is eventually "drowned" by isostatic adjustment and eroded, becoming a seamount. Plate movement across a hot-spot produces a line of islands oriented in the direction of the plate movement. An example is the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawaii to Kure, which continue beneath the sea surface in a more northerly direction as the Emperor Seamounts. Another chain with similar orientation is the Tuamotu Archipelago; its older, northerly trend is the Line Islands. The southernmost chain is the Austral Islands, with its northerly trending part the atolls in the nation of Tuvalu. Tristan da Cunha is an example of a hotspot volcano in the Atlantic Ocean. Another hotspot in the Atlantic is the island of Surtsey, which was formed in 1963.
Atolls
An atoll is an island formed from a coral reef that has grown on an eroded and submerged volcanic island. The reef rises to the surface of the water and forms a new island. Atolls are typically ring-shaped with a central lagoon. Examples are the Line Islands in the Pacific and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.
Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Island." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 30 May. 2021. Web. 28 Jun. 2021.
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
Coral belongs to the class Anthozoa in the animal phylum Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones and jellyfish. Unlike sea anemones, corals secrete hard carbonate exoskeletons that support and protect the coral. Most reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated water. Coral reefs first appeared 485 million years ago, at the dawn of the Early Ordovician, displacing the microbial and sponge reefs of the Cambrian.
Sometimes called rainforests of the sea, shallow coral reefs form some of Earth's most diverse ecosystems. They occupy less than 0.1% of the world's ocean area, about half the area of France, yet they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species, including fish, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, echinoderms, sponges, tunicates and other cnidarians. Coral reefs flourish in ocean waters that provide few nutrients. They are most commonly found at shallow depths in tropical waters, but deep water and cold water coral reefs exist on smaller scales in other areas.
Coral reefs deliver ecosystem services for tourism, fisheries and shoreline protection. Coral reefs are fragile, partly because they are sensitive to water conditions. They are under threat from excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), rising temperatures, oceanic acidification, overfishing (e.g., from blast fishing, cyanide fishing, spearfishing on scuba), sunscreen use, and harmful land-use practices, including runoff and seeps (e.g., from injection wells and cesspools).
Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Coral reef." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Jun. 2021. Web. 28 Jun. 2021.
The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers over 70 percent of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, as well as certain large, entirely landlocked, saltwater lakes, such as the Caspian Sea.
The sea moderates Earth's climate and has important roles in the water cycle, carbon cycle, and nitrogen cycle. Humans harnessing and studying the sea have been recorded since ancient times, and evidenced well into prehistory, while its modern scientific study is called oceanography. The most abundant solid dissolved in seawater is sodium chloride. The water also contains salts of magnesium, calcium, potassium, and mercury, amongst many other elements, some in minute concentrations. Salinity varies widely, being lower near the surface and the mouths of large rivers and higher in the depths of the ocean; however, the relative proportions of dissolved salts vary little across the oceans. Winds blowing over the surface of the sea produce waves, which break when they enter the shallow water. Winds also create surface currents through friction, setting up slow but stable circulations of water throughout the oceans. The directions of the circulation are governed by factors, including the shapes of the continents and Earth's rotation (the Coriolis effect). Deep-sea currents, known as the global conveyor belt, carry cold water from near the poles to every ocean. Tides, the generally twice-daily rise and fall of sea levels, are caused by Earth's rotation and the gravitational effects of the orbiting Moon and, to a lesser extent, of the Sun. Tides may have a very high range in bays or estuaries. Submarine earthquakes arising from tectonic plate movements under the oceans can lead to destructive tsunamis, as can volcanoes, huge landslides, or the impact of large meteorites.
A wide variety of organisms, including bacteria, protists, algae, plants, fungi, and animals, live in the sea, which offers a wide range of marine habitats and ecosystems, ranging vertically from the sunlit surface and shoreline to the great depths and pressures of the cold, dark abyssal zone, and in latitude from the cold waters under polar ice caps to the colourful diversity of coral reefs in tropical regions. Many of the major groups of organisms evolved in the sea and life may have started there.
The sea provides substantial supplies of food for humans, mainly fish, but also shellfish, mammals and seaweed, whether caught by fishermen or farmed underwater. Other human uses of the sea include trade, travel, mineral extraction, power generation, warfare, and leisure activities such as swimming, sailing, and scuba diving. Many of these activities create marine pollution. The sea has therefore been for humans an integral element throughout history and culture.
Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Sea." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 Jun. 2021. Web. 28 Jun. 2021.
A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island is known as an insular shelf.
The continental margin, between the continental shelf and the abyssal plain, comprises a steep continental slope, surrounded by the flatter continental rise, in which sediment from the continent above cascades down the slope and accumulates as a pile of sediment at the base of the slope. Extending as far as 500 km (310 mi) from the slope, it consists of thick sediments deposited by turbidity currents from the shelf and slope. The continental rise's gradient is intermediate between the gradients of the slope and the shelf.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the name continental shelf was given a legal definition as the stretch of the seabed adjacent to the shores of a particular country to which it belongs.
Source: Wikipedia contributors. "Continental shelf." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Jun. 2021. Web. 28 Jun. 2021.
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