Ocean Floor Ecosystem

This sciencestruck article highlights facts structure and lifeforms belonging to this ecosystem.
Ocean floor ecosystem. Deep ocean hydrothermal vent ecosystems were discovered in 1977. Today we know that life can occur without light and many ecosystems are supported in ways other than plant based photosynthesis. These areas are among the flattest and least explored on the earth s surface. Many species of corals are specialized to grow on the ocean floor and can form massive colonies that survive for centuries.
Seawater circulates deep in the ocean s crust and becomes super heated by hot magma. However bottom trawling can uproot and kill these centuries old coral colonies within a matter of seconds. At mid ocean ridges at hydrothermal vents bacteria that use chemosynthesis for food energy are the base of a unique ecosystem. An entire ecosystem living without light or oxygen flourishes beneath the ocean floor a new study confirms.
Shrimp clams fish and giant tube worms have been found in these extreme places. Marine ecosystem includes saltmarsh mangroves mudflats lagoons coral reefs barrier islands estuaries the ocean floor and the deep sea etc. Along mid ocean ridges where tectonic plates spread apart magma rises and cools to form new crust and volcanic mountain chains. Many animals which live on the ocean floor are red.
Red light is completely absorbed within the first 300 feet of water meaning that anything the colour red will appear black or grey. While most life on this planet requires sunlight to live there is an. Back in 1977 a very interesting discovery was made on the deep ocean floor where no light penetrates. Scientists call it the dark biosphere and it s potentially one of the biggest.
The abyssal plain has a depth between 2 200 and 5 500 m 7 200 and 18 000 ft and covers about 40 of the ocean floor. Around certain hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor there exists ecosystems which are completely independent of. This changed scientists thinking about the processes that occur on the ocean floor and allowed for new ideas about what types of organisms habitats and adaptations might be found below the photic zone. Many of these newly discovered species live deep on the ocean floor in unique habitats that depend on plate movement underwater volcanoes and cold water seeps.
New species are discovered in the ocean each year by marine biologists and other ocean scientists. This ecosystem is entirely separate from the photosynthesis at the surface. The ocean floor off the continental shelf is known as the abyssal plain. Deep sea corals play an extremely vital part in the deep sea ecosystem as coral reefs and coral groves on the.