THE STRUCTURE AND CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE OCEAN

1. The Nature of science

a. Definitions: usage, operational and technical (myth,

theory)

i. Denotational and connotational meaning

b. Potential biases (both personal and cultural)

i. Anthropomorphism : attributing human traits to

non humans

ii. Sapir Whorf – language and reality (not accepted

now)

c. Focus is usually only on one part of a system –

importance of the idea of “system”

d. The idea that science changes its position or

understanding as new data comes in (in this way it

differs from religion)

2. The oceans have changed over time. Climate changes

thought glaciations etc. have caused sea levels to rise and

fall. Last glaciation was ended about 15,000 years ago.

a. This has had an impact on people in that it allows for or

blocks migration whether or not boats are present

i. Population of Australia, Pacific Islands, the New

World

ii. Development of navigation – astronomical as well

as oceanic (currents)

1. Astronomical deals with finding latitude from

the north star which remains fixed (circum-

polar stars do not rise and set. At the poles

all stars are circumpolar and the equator

none are.

2. By relating distance and time from the

Greenwich meridian

b. Created areas Arabian Gulf

3. Changes are also caused by movement of tectonic plates

a. These have caused the formation of seas

i. The red sea and Gulf of Aden are the results of

tectonic plate movement as is the appearance of

parts of “central America” which blocked the flow

of water from the Atlantic to the Pacific

ii. The Persian/Arabian Gulf is formed by rising water

not tectonic plate movement.

b. earthquakes, tsunami waves and so on

i. Famous examples: Santorini, Lisbon, Indonesia,

Fukushima (Tohoku) etc.

ii. Formation of the Red Sea

iii. Formation of the mid oceanic mountain range

c. Storm surges and hurricanes

i. Hurricanes “push” water ahead of them (esp. NE

quadrant in the N. hemisphere

ii. Galveston

4. Oceanic currents also impact migration and weather

a. Relationship between high and low pressures, warm

and cool air; Coriolis effect

b. El Niño (ENSO): How does it operate?

5. Waves

a. Measurement (crest, trough, wavelength)

b. Causes of regular (wind driven) waves (wind strength,

fetch, wind speed)

c. Kinds: wind driven, tsunami, tidal, rogue

d. Waves may continue after started outside the area of

the wind

6. Regular movement of the ocean

a. Tides – high tide, low tide, neap tides

b. What causes them – relation between the sun and the

moon

c. Typically there are 2 high and 2 low tides a day

although this varies.

7. Early attempts to learn about the ocean

a. Cook: mapping the Pacific Islands (ship = The

Endeavor 1768 1771); (ship: The Resolution 1772-

1775; ship: The Resolution 1776 1779)

b. Darwin: evolution, atoll formation (ship = The Beagle

1831-1836)

c. Charles Wyville Thomson (Ship =Challenger 1872-

1876) is the beginning of oceanography

i. Nature of the sea floor

ii. Discovery of new species

iii. Information about the density of water at different

levels

8. The “layout” of the ocean

9. The ocean has many different ecological niches besides

these. One of the most important are “wetlands” which

include estuaries, mangrove swamps and other places where

water coming from the land goes into the sea. These are

places where water is filtered, are breeding grounds for

many species, hold the ground in place and keep erosion

down. The building of cities, the changing of the courses of

rivers and rising sea levels which inundate them can destroy

them.

10. The “two layered ocean” and distribution of materials and

“clines” The thermos cline is about 50 meters.

11. Development of scales to measure natural phenomenon

a. Richter scale (earthquakes)

b. Beaufort scale (wind speed)

c. Fujita scale (power of tornadoes)

d. Safir Simpson (hurricane wind intensity)

LIFE IN THE SEA

1. Life is divided into different categories and classified into

groups by a taxonomic and cladistic method.

2. Evolution. Darwin argued that there were basically 4 steps in

the process: A struggle of existence (limited resources);

Natural variation; Natural selection and the survival of those

better adapted. He believed in Lamark’s theory of acquired

characteristics being inherited through use. This has been

replaced by genetics.

3. Two huge divisions: Prokaryotes (no nuclear membrane) and

Eukaryotes (nuclear membrane)

a. Prokaryotes – Archaea and Bacteria – very different

from one another

b. Eukaryotes – Protists (one celled); fungi (no

photosynthesis); plants (cell walls, vacular system) ,

animals (multi cellular, reproduce sexually or asexually,

heterotrophic, have no cell wall; motile at at least one

stage in life cycle

c. A term like “Algae” refers not so much to a single

biological class as it does to many protists (one celled

organisms – in this case photosynthetic) and sea

weeds, which are multi-cellular but lack roots and

photosynthesize in all cells not just leaves. They are,

despite their multicellular structure considered by some

to be “protists”

d. Animals divided into several groups – on different

grounds. One division is vertebrate vs. Invertebrate.

There are many “Phyla” (phylum) among invertebrates.

The phylum “chordata” (animals with a supporting rod

on the dorsal side) contains a sub phylum called

“vertebrata”. Hence all vertebrates are in the phylum

“chordata”

e. Invertebrates consist of sponges, jelly fish, mollusks,

arthropods, echinoderms, several kinds of worms and

other forms.

f. Vertebrates contain fish, amphibians, reptiles (which

includes birds in a cladistic approach) and mammals.

g. There are many fish which are oceanic (i.e. salt water)

while others are fresh water dwellers.

h. Some fish spend a part of the lives in the ocean but

spawn in fresh water (anadromous - salmon)

i. Some fish spend a part of their lives in fresh water and

spawn in the sea (catadramous – some eels)

j. Fish are usually divided into those with cartilaginous

skeletons (sharks and rays for example) while the

others have bone. Sharks are called “cartilaginous”

while the others are known as “osteichthys”

k. Sharks can be predators (great white shark) or filter

feeders (the whale shark). While they attack people

occasionally, they don’t “eat” them, but bite. Far more

sharks are killed by people than people are by sharks.

l. Mammalian forms that inhabit the seas are whales

(cetaceans), seals and sea lions (pinnipeds) and

manatees (Sirenia)

m. Whales are usually divided into 2 groups “baleen

whales” and toothed whales

i. (Mysteceti – the blue whale, right whale, etc.)

These are “filter feeders” using baleen to strain

food.

ii. (Odontoceti, sperm whale, killer whale porpoises

etc.) these are predators with teeth

n. Most shell fish are mollusks and arthropods like

crustaceans (crabs and lobsters etc.), The horseshoe

crab however is more closely related to spiders than to

the “true” crabs.

o. Plants and animals are involved in complex eco

systems which involve food chains and control of

populations. A food chain is made up of trophic levels.

Each level eats organisms at lower levels. Starting with

PRIMARY PRODUCERS which are organisms which do

not eat, but manufacture their own food internally

(known as autotrophs) , all others need to eat

(heterotrophs) At each ascending trophic level only

about 10% of the original energy is usable for process

other than acquiring, digesting and getting rid of waste

materials

p. Examples of control can be seen in the overfishing of

mackerel and pollock, the favorite food of seals. This

led to a loss in the number of seals (the main food of

killer whales) who then turned to sea otters for food

(already endangered) and who normally eat sea urchins

(echinoderms) who control the growth of the kelp.

q. Other examples are found in the anchovy problems and

in the increases of seals in the N Atlantic which may be

leading to increased attacks on humans by White

sharks in Cape Cod

THE NATURE OF CULTURE AND THINGS INVOLVED WITH IT

1. Culture

a. Shared learned behavior some distinction between the

universal and the specific)

b. Tools making and use

c. Language (not simply communication)

2. Symbolic expression

a. Symbols (x stands for y arbitrarily)

b. Religion, magic and science and their relationships

i. Magical practices occur when there is high risk

ii. Magic is manipulative; religion supplicative

iii. Malinowski argued against the earlier idea that

magic evolved into religion and religion into

science say all cultures had all three. The

differences had to do with the symbolic categories

of the sacred and the profane.

c. Religion, folklore, art.

i. Japanese – (Misogi water and purification)

ii. Christianity (Baptism, Orthodox Greek Epiphany

ceremonies)

iii. Crossing the line ceremonies

iv. Stories, folk tales, legends, myths and poetry

1. Food prohibitions (Leviticus)

v. Artistic representation in painting sculpture and

music.

3. Social structure

a. Family structure

b. Political organization

c. Economic organization

i. Tourism: travel, boating, sport fishing etc,

ii. Greek sponge diving and Japanese pearl diving

1. Both in countries (or parts thereof) with little

arable land

2. Differences between them

iii. Fishing

1. Kinds of fishing – hooks, nets, (gill nets,

purse seine, trawls, long lines)

2. Overfishing

3. Recruitment and Growth overfishing.

Maximum sustainable yield

4. bycatch

iv. Whaling

1. International Whaling Commission (IWC)

2. Endangered species (Atlantic Right Whale);

Pacific Gray Whale recovered; Blue whale)

3. Aboriginal vs commercial

4. Attitudes of whalers in different cultures

towards whales

a. Makah, Inuit

4. Ecological Problems

a. Much legislation in U.S. and other countries.

Environmental Protection Agency and US Coast Guard

are involved.

i. EPA covers all environments

ii. US Coast Guard tasked with military, law

enforcement, marine safety and environmental

protection.

1. Involvement with both commercial and

recreational use of waterways

b. Climate change – speed of change is crucial; change is

always happening.

c. Idea of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere,

biosphere and residency time. How long does a

chemical stay in a specific sphere?

i. Green house gases. Impact on weather and wild

life

1. Changes in environment

2. Increased acidity in ocean and weakening of

shells

3. Death of corals from increased temperature

ii. Origin of CO2 in atmosphere

1. Respiration

2. Volcanos

3. Human caused (anthropogenic)

d. Oil

i. Comes from oceanic seeps, spills (accidental and

deliberate) run off from land.

1. Ship spills are concentrated, but less that the

amount from land which is less concentrated.

a. Exxon Valdez

b. Costa Concordia

e. Plastics

i. PCBs PCBs are a group of man-made organic chemicals consisting of carbon, hydrogen and chlorine atoms. The number of chlorine atoms and

their location in a PCB molecule determine many of its physical and chemical properties. PCBs have no known taste or smell, and range in consistency from an oil to a waxy solid.

PCBs belong to a broad family of man-made organic chemicals known as chlorinated

hydrocarbons. PCBs were domestically manufactured from 1929 until manufacturing was banned in 1979. They have a range of toxicity and vary in consistency from thin, light-colored liquids to yellow or black waxy solids. Due to their non-flammability, chemical stability, high boiling point and electrical insulating properties, PCBs were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications including:

Electrical, heat transfer and hydraulic equipment Plasticizers in paints, plastics and rubber products Pigments, dyes and carbonless copy paper Other industrial applications

1. Piper Alpha fire (North Sea) 2. Con Edison in NYC’s East River

ii. Micro beads – tiny found n shampoos, tooth

pastes 1. range in width from a fraction of a millimeter

to about a millimeter and a quarter.

iii. Plastic bags, can containers etc.

1. Danger to wild life – animals get caught in it;

gets put in nests and is eaten

iv. Ghost fishing problems. Fishing equipment lost to

ocean that still catches organisms (nylon fishing

line as well as some plastic materials)

f. Eutrophication

i. Excess nitrogen goes into the water often through

sewerage. This produces algae bloom.

1. Many algae are toxic, but even those that are

not can cause problems in massive blooms.

2. They block sunlight from plants on the ocean

floor

3. They die and sink to the bottom, causing

dissolved oxygen to be taken out of the

water causing dead zones.

g. Heavy metals

i. Minamata, Japan, mercury poisoning from

chemical factory. Diseases occur pre and post

birth

h. Radiation

i. Leakage from nuclear plants is main source

1. Problems in Japan after reactor failure during

Tohoku earthquake and tidal wave

2. Fear of contamination in fish and other sea

organisms

5. Extinction

a. Extinction refers to a species ceasing to exist without a

descendant species or group of species (i.e. they evolve

into something else as some dinosaurs did into birds).

i. The loss of a species by extinction can disrupt an

ecosystem which has to find a new “stasis” or

“balance”

ii. Extinctions are always happening and these are

generally called “background extinctions”.

iii. Mass extinctions occur when many different

species die off at a higher rate than the normal

“background” extinction rate

iv. These appear to be caused by changes in the

environment which may happen so rapidly the

organisms do not have time to adapt to the

changes.

v. Mass extinctions have been related to a number of

events including massive volcanic eruptions,

meteor or asteroid strikes which cause radical

shifts in the environment.

vi. The greatest mass extinction is at the end of the

Permian in which about 95% of the species

disappear. This is associated with massive volcanic

eruptions of the Siberian Traps, a volcanic range

in Siberia. These may have been triggered by a

“hit” by an extra-terrestrial body (meteor, comet,

asteroid) which has been tentatively found in

Antarctica. The Permian dates from about 299

million years ago to about 151 million years ago.

The K-T extinction (65 million years ago) which

killed off most dinosaurs is associated with

another impact (Chicxulub) in the Yucatan area

and the eruption of the Deccan Traps in India.

b. The extinction of a species can be dangerous since it

may disrupt the ecosystem and also may be a loss of a

food supply for people