Marine environment

“ But little fresh water empties upon this part of the coast, and here, where the salt water is little modified by any deposit from the land, but where the violence of the ocean is broken by this barrier of islands, there is a full development of marine life. ”

“ Not only changes of food, however, but changes of climate and of temperature, changes in surrounding organisms, in the case of marine animals even changes of pressure, of ocean currents, of light, and of many other circumstances, are known to exert a powerful modifying influence upon living organisms. These relations are still being worked out in many directions, but the influence of Environment as a prime factor in Variation is now a recognized doctrine of science. ”

“ This month we celebrate the wonder of the oceans, and we commit to protecting and sustaining them for current and future generations. The oceans are critical to supporting life. From the abyssal plains of the Pacific to the shallow coral reefs and seagrass beds of the Florida Keys, oceans support an incredible diversity of marine life and ecosystems. The base of the oceanic ecosystem provides most of the oxygen we breathe, so oceans are critical to our survival. These bodies of water also drive weather patterns and affect climate. Our Nation's economy relies heavily on the oceans. ”

“ Thus we perceive that these creatures, though they are regarded as being so low in the scale of creation, may nevertheless be regarded as agents of much importance in the terrestrial economy; for we perceive that they are capable of spreading over certain parts of the ocean those benign mantles of warmth which temper the winds, and modify, more or less, all the marine climates of the earth. ”

“ Upon this supposition — the like of which nature warrants throughout her whole domain — we may conceive how the marine animals of which we have been speaking may impress other features upon the physical relations of the sea by assisting also to regulate climates, and to adjust the temperature of certain latitudes. ”

“ NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION The oceans and the atmosphere are interacting parts of the total environmental system upon which we depend not only for the quality of our lives, but for life itself.
We face immediate and compelling needs for better protection of life and property from natural hazards, and for a better understanding of the total environment—and understanding which will enable us more effectively to monitor and predict its actions, and ultimately, perhaps to exercise some degree of control over them. ”

“ These seas are to be compared with the littoral regions of the present oceans, and they are the areas that are most exposed to climatic and physical changes, due to their proximity to the atmosphere and the lands. The life of these waters is, therefore, subject to an environment that is more or less changeable, and one of the basic causes underlying organic change. ”

“ The fauna and flora of the Sea are as much the creatures of Climate, and are as dependent for their well-being upon temperature, as are the fauna and flora of the dry land. Were it not so, we should find the fish and the algæ, the marine insect and the coral, distributed equally and alike in all parts of the ocean; the polar whale would delight in the torrid zone; and the habitat of the pearl oyster would be also under the iceberg, or in frigid waters colder than the melting ice. ”

“ It may therefore be supposed that the arrangements in the economy of nature are such as to require that the various kinds of marine animals, whose secretions are calculated to alter the specific gravity of sea water, to destroy its equilibrium, to beget currents in the ocean, and to control its circulation, should be distributed according to order. ”

“ The first step in marine biological investigations, whether in the Polar sea or elsewhere, is the study of the physical conditions under which the marine forms of animals and plants live, and correlation of these observations in various seas. ”

“ The activity of this marine life is owing not more to the comfort with which the abundance of water-surface and the frequency of harbors allow it to be kept up than to the intense vitality and fruitfulness of the denizens of the water itself. ”

“ As this era begins, the sea bottoms, the extensive continental shelves, and the numerous shallow near-shore basins are covered with prolific vegetation. The more simple and primitive forms of animal life have already developed from preceding vegetable organisms, and the early animal organisms have gradually made their way along the extensive coast lines of the various land masses until the many inland seas are teeming with primitive marine life. ”

“ As governments, international organizations and private groups develop plans and programs to harvest some of the riches of the sea, we must also control marine pollution. We must unlock the secrets of the ocean to understand the results of man's activities-not only at sea, but on land as well-which adversely affect sea-life. ”

“ Marine vegetation.—The marine vegetation is divisible into different systems, like those prevailing on the land; but they are much fewer, as we might have expected, the temperature of the ocean being more uniform than that of the atmosphere, and consequently the dispersion of species from one zone to another being less frequently checked by the intervention of uncongenial climates. The proportion also of land to sea throughout the globe being small, the migration of marine plants is not so often stopped by barriers of land, as is that of the terrestrial species by the ocean. ”

“ In the resulting nautical development the natural talents and habits of the people are of immense influence; but these in turn have been largely determined by the geographical environment of their previous habitat, whether inland or coastal, and by the duration in time, as well as the degree and necessity, of their contact with the sea. ”

“ The dews, the rains, and the rivers are continually dissolving certain minerals of the earth, and carrying them off to the sea. This is an accumulative process; and if it were not compensated, the sea would finally become, as the Dead Sea is, saturated with salt, and therefore unsuitable for the habitation of many fish of the sea. The sea-shells and marine insects afford the required compensation. They are the conservators of the ocean. ”

“ This is often a matter of no little importance to the sea-side naturalist, who may require to keep marine animals alive for some time at considerable distance from the sea shore, while their growth and habits are observed. ”

“ Let us take, in connection with all this, the fact that we are dealing with the deposits of the earliest ocean known to us—an ocean warm and abounding in the mineral matters suitable for the skeletons of humble animals, and fitted to nourish aquatic plants. The conditions were certainly favourable to an exuberant development of the lower forms of marine life; and in later times, when such conditions prevail, we generally find that life has been introduced to take advantage of them. ”

“ But we already have ample evidence that the same beneficent order controls the distribution of animals in the ocean as on land, appointing to all its inhabitants their fitting home in the dim waste of waters. ”

“ Marine testacea.—The aquatic animals and plants which inhabit an estuary are liable, like the trees and land animals which people the alluvial plains of a great river, to be swept from time to time far into the deep; for as a river is perpetually shifting its course, and undermining a portion of its banks with the forests which cover them, so the marine current alters its direction from time to time, and bears away the banks of sand and mud against which it turns its force. ”

“ Great numbers of marine organisms live near the shores, so that as long as we do not cover them with concrete and fill the littoral areas with garbage, there is no need to go far out to sea to fish, thereby being a nuisance to other countries. ”

“ Much of that part of the earth's crust which man stirs up in cultivation, and which yields him bread, has been made fruitful by these "salts," which all manner of marine insects, aqueous organisms, and sea-shells have secreted from the ocean. Much of this portion of our planet has been filtered through the sea, and its insects and creeping things are doing now precisely what they were set about when the dry land appeared, namely, preserving the purity of the ocean, and regulating it in the due performance of its great offices. ”

“ On a planet where life has a marine origin the ideal conditions for life implantation are provided by a large number of inland seas, by an extensive shore line of shallow waters and sheltered bays; and just such a distribution of the earth's waters was rapidly developing. ”

“ The gradual retiring of the primitive chaotic ocean, would give sufficient time for the production of those immense beds of marine animals which are found in the most solid and elevated mountains. During the prevalence of the sea, these beds would form at the bottom, and when it retired they would consolidate, with the mineral deposites, into rocks. ”

“ The transformation of the ocean into a highway by the development of navigation is a late occurrence in the history of man and is perhaps the highest phase of his adaptation to environment, because an adaptation which has placed at his disposal that vast water area constituting three-fourths of the earth's surface from which he had previously been excluded. ”

“ As the localization of marine plants and animals is in a considerable degree determined by the nature of the rocks and their detritus, it follows that each part of this coast will have its more or less distinct Flora and Fauna. What now must result from the action of the waves in the course of a geologic epoch? As the sea makes slow inroads on the land, the place at which each group of strata crops out on the beach will gradually move towards the west: its distinctive fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and sea-weeds, migrating with it. ”

“ Yet, while rivers may thus carry down the same fluviatile and terrestrial spoils into two or more seas inhabited by different marine species, it will much more frequently happen that the coexistence of terrestrial species of distinct zoological and botanical provinces will be proved by the identity of the marine beings which inhabited the intervening space. ”

“ Contents of the Plan- The plan shall— (1) provide for interdisciplinary research among the ocean sciences, and coordinated research and activities to improve the understanding of ocean chemistry that will affect marine ecosystems; (2) establish, for the 10-year period beginning in the year the plan is submitted, the goals and priorities for Federal research and monitoring which will— (A) advance understanding of ocean acidification and its physical, chemical, and biological impacts on marine organisms and marine ecosystems ”

“ Of the useful marine animals, those which are most readily captured are the littoral forms, many of which, on shores where the tides are well marked, are exposed, or at least brought within easy reach, by the daily ebb and flow of the tide, and can be obtained with the minimum of apparatus. ”

“ But the ocean lies winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion—its glassy waters scarcely curve upon the shore—the fishing-boats in the tiny harbour are all stranded in the mud—our two colliers (our watering-place has a maritime trade employing that amount of shipping) have not an inch of water within a quarter of a mile of them, and turn, exhausted, on their sides, like faint fish of an antediluvian species. ”

“ And once more, the comparatively-varied shores, presenting physical conditions that change from mile to mile, will furnish suitable habitats for more numerous species. So that as the elevation proceeds, three causes conspire to introduce additional marine plants and animals. To what classes will the increasing Fauna be for a long period confined? Of course, to classes of which individuals, or their germs, are most liable to be carried far away from their native shores by floating sea-weed or drift-wood ”

“ Goods and services are transported across them constantly. They support countless jobs in an array of industries, including fishing, tourism, and energy. The economies of entire regions depend on the oceans. The United States has been a leader in exploring and protecting this critical resource. We have gained new insights into the ocean ecosystems through research and monitoring. ”

“ There is a strife between these currents, and on their confines eddies are formed which ships avoid, but there is no danger unless the wind blows strongly against the tide.
Besides the influence of the currents and the tides of the ocean in altering the configuration of the land, the sea is the home of innumerable forms of animal life, which are constantly laboring in the same direction. It has been truly said, that [706] a beef bone, thrown overboard by a sailor on a ship, may form the nucleus of a new continent. ”

“ We shall behold new wonders and riches when we investigate the sea-shore. We shall find both beauty for the eye and food for the body, in the varieties of shell-fish which adhere in myriads to the rocks or form their close dark burrows in the sands. In some parts of the world we shall see those houses of stone which the little coral-insect rears up with patient industry from the bottom of the waters, till they grow into formidable rocks and broad forests whose branches never wave and whose leaves never fall. ”

“ There is about the deep sea, even in the hottest weather, a delicious atmosphere of cool cleanliness, a searching purity, such as the earth can never yield, giving one the fixed idea that to this vast, unpollutable limpidity the nations owe their health. In some dim fashion this thought is present with all sea-farers, however dense and unnoticing they may be. ”