The ocean water column is made up of five zones: the sunlight (epipelagic), twilight (mesopelagic), midnight (bathypelagic), abyssal (abyssopelagic) and hadal zones (trenches).

Sep 29, 2023 · The ocean twilight zone provides important ecosystem services, including supporting ocean food webs and commercial fisheries, and transferring carbon dioxide to the deep ocean. How does the twilight zone support ocean food webs?

Nov 14, 2024 · The hadal zone is characterized by extreme depth and pressure, temperatures that hover just above freezing, and complete darkness—at least in terms of light from the sun. Bioluminescence allows organisms in the ocean depths to communicate.

The surface ocean extends from 0 to roughly 100 meters (330 feet) depth across the entire ocean. This is where the ocean meets the atmosphere and absorbs carbon dioxide from the air—a key link in the planetary carbon cycle and primary cause of ocean acidification.

Feb 25, 2021 · The seafloor and water column from 3,000 to 6,500 meters (9,842 to 21,325 feet) depth is known as the abyssal zone, or the abyss. Sunlight doesn’t penetrate to these depths, so the waters here are extremely dark, and the animals that live here often use bioluminescence to …

Nov 14, 2024 · The upper layer of the ocean is known as the sunlit, or euphotic, zone. Because water strongly absorbs light, sunlight penetrates only to depths of about 200 meters (656 feet).

New submersible provides insights into how organic carbon moves through the ocean twilight zone

Nov 14, 2024 · By about 1,000 meters (about 3,300 feet) depth, even the faintest light has been extinguished, leaving these deep ocean waters in perpetual darkness. The resulting bathypelagic, or midnight, zone extends to about 4,000 meters (about 13,100 feet), which reaches the ocean floor in many places.

Jul 3, 2024 · The project has two goals: first to better quantify how carbon moves through the twilight zone and second, to understand the implications of large-scale fishing in this part of the ocean as a dimension of food security in the coming decades.

Diagram on left shows how the ocean is divided into different depth categories. Diagram on the right shows how deep the different colors of light penetrate into the ocean. You can see that red light doesn’t reach down very far, this is why many deep-sea …