Читать книгу Oceans For Dummies - Joseph Kraynak - Страница 73

IN THIS CHAPTER

Slicing and dicing the ocean into different zones

Navigating horizontal zones from coast to open sea

Plumbing the depths of vertical zones from surface to seafloor

Checking out other zone concepts and terms

People like to divide really big things into smaller parts to better understand, discuss, and manage them. For instance, your city or town probably has residential, commercial, and maybe even industrial and agricultural zones. Meteorologists divide the world into climate zones — tropical, temperate, arid, continental, and polar. To deliver mail more efficiently, the U.S. Postal Service breaks down the entire country into postal zones, each with its own ZIP code.

Likewise, oceanographers divide the ocean into several zones to better understand the conditions required for different organisms and ecosystems to evolve and exist. They use several criteria to designate a zone, including exposure to tides and currents, the area’s topography (physical characteristics), depth, amount of light, and more.

In this chapter, we lead you on an exploration of the different ocean zones. Understanding these zones will enhance your understanding of the ocean and its fascinating habitats and inhabitants … assuming you don’t zone out while reading this chapter (sorry, we couldn’t resist).