Introduction to Marine

Geology

Chapter 1
What is going on here?
Goal of the course:
An introduction to the scientific
discipline in all its diversity.

An introduction to scientific problem

solving and discovery.

Conversational literacy of current

issues.
How to succeed

• Attend class
• Do all assignments
• Read ahead of time
• Don’t miss any deadlines
Oceanography

Young science
Requires knowledge of other “traditional”
sciences
Interdisciplinary
Important for many aspects of everyday life
(that’s why we’re here)
Oceans

• 71% of the globe

• Influence through geopolitics, climate,
pollution, weather, recreation, food.
• Enjoyment and appreciation
• Informed citizen on environmental and
political issues that involve the earth &
ocean around you.
Examples of useful information
• Distribution of earthquake zones and areas most affected by
sea level rise
• Oil & mineral distribution – why & where
• Oceans & climate – ozone hole, atmospheric pollution,
greenhouse effect, coral reefs (go see them now!), global
warming (and rational debate about)
• Beach erosion & replenishment, sewage disposal, pollution
(e.g., detergents and fertilizers)
• Weather & hurricanes
• Good fishing & surfing
• Why the ocean is warm on the Atlantic beaches and cold on
Pacific beaches
Why study the ocean???
•The volume of living space in the ocean is huge
compared to that on land.

•About 71% of Earth’s surface is covered by oceans.

Land is only 29% of the earth’s surface.
•If the earth were flat, the oceans would cover it to a
depth of 2440 meters! (~ 1.7 miles)
•Avg depth of the oceans 3800 m
•Avg height of land 875 m
Some statistics & fun facts
• Surface area to volume argument
• Area of the earth’s surface = 510,100,934 km2
• 29% of that is land = 147,929,271 km2 land
• if the vertical living area on land is 0.1 km (100m)
deep (tip of tallest trees to depth of their roots)=
14,779,292.7 km3 life-space on land
• The volume of the oceans is 3,763 x 106 km3
• The “living space’ on land is thus only 0.39% of that
compared with the ocean.
• Next slide shows distribution of land vs ocean. Note
major differences between N and S hemispheres.
•The deepest trench in the ocean is
Challenger Deep in the Mariana
Trench 11020 meters
•Longest Trench is Peru-Chile
5900 km.
•The largest
sea is the
South China
Sea, with an
area of
1,148,500
square miles.
•The Caribbean
Sea is the
deepest at 8,448
ft.
•The largest
ocean current
is the
Kuroshio
Current. 25 -
75 miles/day,
1-3 knots, and
extends some
3300 ft deep.
The Gulf
Stream is
close to this
current's
speed.
•Mean depth of the ocean is 3795m
•Atlantic is shallowest - 3332m
•Extensive “shallow” areas and 20.4% is
shallower than 1000 meters.
•Indian Ocean - 3897 m
•Pacific Ocean - 4028 m
•Over 2X the volume of Atlantic
We study the ocean for the following reasons…

• The ocean has a vast amount of living space that we know

little about. What lives there and how do these organisms
interact? How are they adapted to their environment?
We also study the ocean for the following reasons…

• The ocean’s influence on weather and climate.

(CO2 (1/3 of all emissions) absorption, El Nino, hurricanes)
• There are many minerals in the sea.
(Manganese nodules, oil drilling platforms, etc…)

• Past climate research (paleoclimates) – Cores

We also study the ocean for the following reasons…

• Human use of the ocean.

• Fisheries, causes of fluctuations in resources,
influence of commercial & sport fishing. Fin &
shellfish etc…Aquaculture – Salmon, Mussels,
etc…
• Carrageenan from macroalgae: source of Food.
• Drugs from marine organisms.
Oceanographic Research is generally
broken up into sub-disciplines
•Biological: Ocean life from microbes to whales. How they
interact with physical & chemical & geological features.
Pollutant effects. Aquaculture, fisheries, etc…

•Chemical: Trace metals, salts, gases, pollutants,

distributions, transformations.

•Geological: Plate tectonics, sedimentation, volcanism.

•Physical: Currents & atmospheric interactions deep &

surface currents, rate of flow. Waves & tides. Prediction of
future changes.
That’s not all – hot topics cross
disciplines
• Biogeochemistry – nutrient & chemical
transformations and cycles over time
• Geophysics – seismology, paleomagnetics,
plate tectonics
• Biocomplexity – ecology in the face of
chemical & physical constraints
• Marine genomics & proteomics – census of
marine life; diversity
Other areas of interest
• Archaeology
• Law of the sea
• Rules of navigation
• Ocean engineering
• Resource management
How to study oceans
• Scientific method
 Important to remember for this class
• Fun of the big picture – try to keep it in mind
• I’ll talk mainly in metric units. Only the US, Liberia, Burma
and Myanmar have not adopted metric measurements.
• The importance of scales
– Temporal and spatial
– micro to mega
• Largely descriptive
• Don’t focus on numbers rather than relative sizes
• Some numbers are important
– Age of the earth
– Average depth of oceans
 Take home points
• Scientific method
• Volume of living space large in ocean relative to land
• Most land is in the N hemisphere
• Average depth of the ocean is much greater than the
average height of land
• 3 major ocean basins: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian
• Oceanography important for weather and climate,
human activities, minerals, paleoenvironments
• Major subdisciplines of oceanography and newer
interdisciplinary topics