X t r a e t c e t e r a
Journal
The ocean means many things to us. At least 70% of our home is ocean, just as nearly 70% of us is water. Traveling towards Antarctica in space, all you would see is an island of ice surrounded by a lot of blue. If you didn't know better, you'd think there were no rocks or trees anywhere. Most of us live near the ocean. All of us need water to live, as do most living beings and plants on this planet. But to a lot of us, the ocean means a lot more...
- Journal
- The Ocean
- Island Barriers
- Sounds
- Estuaries
- Mangroves
- Swamps, Rivers, Lakes, and Creeks
- Swamps
- Rivers
- Lakes
- Pocosins
- Reservoirs
- Natural Lakes
- Creeks
- Springs
- Boiling
- Artesian
- Lithia
- Forests
- Rainforests
- Tropical
- Temperate
The Ocean
The ocean is a universe beyond imagination, and beyond our knowledge of it. A lot of plants and animals that live in the ocean are familiar to us, but many are as alien as if we were visiting another planet. More plants and animals in the ocean may not have yet been discovered. The ocean is not the easiest universe to explore, but it's well worth the effort.
The ocean is our vacation destination... our fun place... our happy place... our romantic getaway... our place for inspiration... our writer's workshop weekend at an oceanfront hotel... the best place to see a sky full of stars... a means of travel on cruise ships big enough to be independent countries... a means of escape to better and freer places... this list could go on and on...
The ocean nourishes us... it provides for everyone... carnivores, fishitarians, vegetarians, vegans... and the better we take care of the ocean, the better it provides for us... the cycle of life works like that, and now it is threatened... mainly by us... waters have been overfished... plastics and trash leak toxic chemicals as they break down... industrial and agricultural waste cause algal blooms... oil spills and leaks do far worse... the ocean, like the land, has its ways of healing itself... but we must do our part as if our lives depend on it... because they do...
The ocean is not just one big body of blue... it reveals many dimensions, colors, and moods, and geography has divided it and continues to change it, and accordingly we give it several names: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian... North Sea, Mediterranean, Gulf of Mexico... as parts go dry and leave their fossils... and areas of land are covered as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge continues to spread... and the planet continues to grow warmer...
Ocean Layers
For more information, please visit www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/ocean/layers_ocean.htm
1. Intertidal Zone
- Spray Zone
- High Tide
- Middle Tide
- Low Tide
2. Epipelagic Zone: "The Sunlight Zone": The First 660ft/200 meters.
3. Mesopelagic Zone: "The Twilight Zone": 660ft/200m - 3,300ft/1,000m.
- The Realm of Bioluminescence
4. Bathypelagic Zone: "The Midnight Zone": 3,300ft/1,000m - 13,100ft/4,000m.
5. Abyssopelagic Zone: 13,100ft/4,000m - 19,700ft/6,000m.
- A realm of no light, near-freezing temperatures, and extreme water pressure.
6. Hadalpelagic Zone: 19,700ft/6,000m - 35,797ft/10,911m (depth of Mariana Trench)
- Yes, deeper than Mt. Everest is high. Foraminafera can live here. Somehow those little plankton can survive 8 tons of pressure per square inch and near-freezing temperatures.
Currituck Sound, Corolla, North Carolina (c.2014 RMT/CMCP)
Estuaries are areas of the coast between the mainland and the barrier islands where saltwater and freshwater mix, creating a brackish environment. Within this environment are three general areas: salt marshes, sounds, and beaches. Within these general areas might be mud flats, sand flats, and tidal creeks.
Estuaries are important because they serve as protection for the mainland from the ocean's battering waves, absorbing the shock waves and preventing a rapid and damaging erosion. Estuaries also serve as a filter for incoming waters, as they absorb certain elements in the water and release nutrients to be circulated.
Estuaries are the homes of many different plants and animals, and are the source of nutrients, in some form or another, for many living beings on this planet, including us. Our health is strongly linked to the health of our estuaries.
Estuaries
Beach
Corolla, NC (c2014RMT)
Sound
Sugar Creek, Nags Head, NC (c2015RMT)
Tidal Creek
Corolla, NC (c2014RMT)
Salt Marsh
Many elements that find their way to the ocean started their journeys from somewhere upstream, as do many environmental problems. Most of us who don't live by the ocean live upstream or lakeside, or we have a nice little creek in the backyard, which might have even started from a charming little freshwater spring.
The swamps are bodies of still or slow-moving water that are usually not part of an estuary but will most likely be found close to one, although swamps can occur inland, anywhere that water collects and doesn't drain. They are not the same as marshes, where water flows very well, but they seem to be cousins. They are necessary ecosystems with a variety of plants, some of which are pharmacologically important to us, and animals. They are a part of our folklore, dark, dangerous, and mysterious. And in the moonlight in the summer, in the glow of a low fog or mysterious orbs called foxfire or will 'o the wisp, it becomes a magical place. Who doesn't love a swamp? But they do tend to be drained a lot, and built over. As people in Florida may tell you, based on their experience with the attempted "taming" and settling of the Everglades, how damaging that can be.
Some swamps are actually slow-moving rivers, which are highways for everything on land. Rivers are our circulation system, and their creeks are our capillaries. What seeps or falls into them, and flows in them, says a lot about the health of our environment, as does what lives and grows in them.
Lakes are very enjoyable to a lot of us. Well, there's water-skiing, swimming, kite-surfing, fishing, kayaking... a good, meditative lakeside hike can lead to a change in a person's philosophy, or career, or some other positive improvement. Freshwater lakes are valuable reservoirs that can occasionally be endangered by drought or by industrial accidents. Lakes are havens for wildlife like sandhill cranes or bald eagles, bear or deer.
Swamps, Rivers, Lakes, and Creeks
Falls Lake, NC (c2014RMT)
Aucilla River, St. Mark's NWR, FL (c2014RMT)
Merchant's Millpond, NC (c2014RMT)
CMCP is based in North Carolina
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