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Asked by dawn1nun on 12 Apr 2024.
Question: Whats at the bottom of the ocean?
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Anton Edwards answered on 12 Apr 2024:
The bottom of the deep ocean is mainly mud. Very few dead fish or other animals produced near the surface of the sea reach the bottom of the deep ocean because things eat them as they fall. So there are a few very special creatures that live at the bottom who have to find the occasional bits of food that reach the bottom.
In shallower waters the tides and other currents move the fine mud around so that it sometimes moves away, leaving sand and stones. These shallower bottoms can have many living things that feed on the life in the shallow water.
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Tamsin Dobson answered on 25 Jun 2024:
It does depend on what you mean by ābottomā.
At the bottom of the deep ocean , there is very little (if any) light, the temperature is too low to support much life and even dead animal detritus is absorbed before it reaches the deep depths.
However, in shallower seas where some light penetrates to the bottom, there may be hydrothermal vents, salt lakes (yes, salt lakes inside the ocean) where some specialist animals can exist (such as the famous vent worms and crabs!). These ecosystems can be complex and really interesting!!!
Most of the o ram bottom is devoid of life, but in some areas you might find pockets of life surrounding (for example) a dead whales body or shipwreck etc.
As we get shallower, you could see kelp forests or coral reefs or rocky outcrops or sandy bottoms etc And, closer to land, more evidence of human life (shipwrecks, plastic pollution etc) too (sadly).
Itās really varied in the ocean!
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Clare commented on :
Some of the water at the bottom of the ocean is really old – by that I mean it has been locked away at the bottom of the ocean away from the atmosphere for 100’s to 1000’s of years. Water that is formed near Antarctica is so dense that it sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it flows into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is eventually is mixed back to the surface where it starts its journey again.
DrBecks commented on :
There are so many cool things at the bottom of the ocean!
First off, its super dark down there, so animals need to find new ways of communicating, since colours the way we see them are not visible down in the deep dark ocean. Animals that want to hide are often red, because that is a colour that cant be seen in deeper waters (which as something to do with the way that colour travels and it being absorbed by water. You can test that by taking differently coloured objects to the pool the next time you go and letting them sink to the floor. Without getting into the water, look at all the objects and decide which still looks most similar to its colour before it was thrown into the water.
Some other animals have developed awesome disco lighting (Look up bioluminescent deep sea creatures on youtube and you will see what i mean)!
Although most of the deep ocean is quite cold and doesn’t heat up the same way surface water does, even during the summer, you do find “hot spots” down there. These are called hydrothermal vents and are like little chimneys in the seafloor where it gets really hot compared to the rest of the seafloor. You’ll find loads of animals living around these, because its nice an toasty!
In general we know so little about this habitat and although it looks like bare murky sand, many species have been discovered down there (small and large).