Oceans Essay, Research Paper

The Ocean

The ocean areas that are the habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife-are often the most vulnerable. The Ocean is really important to humans and other living species. There are advantages that the ocean offers and there are many dangers that may affect the ocean. Some examples of advantages are tourism, food, transportation and also a source of many materials. Some dangers that affect the ocean and the species that rely on the ocean are oil spills, pollution, and many other things.

The ocean is the source of many materials, from ores mined from its depths to relaxing mineral salts for a bath. Exquisite mother of pearl inlay, decorative shells, and pearl jewellery are found in gift shops worldwide. And whether your tastes run to the exotic, like yellow fin tuna sushi, or the mundane of fast food milkshakes, products from the sea are probably in your diet. Many species of vertebrate and invertebrate marine animals as well as marine algae are important sources of food worldwide.

On the grocer’s shelf and in the pharmacy, in industry and in the arts, the ocean is a resource without equal. However, exploitation of these natural resources carries with it the responsibility to use them wisely and preserve them globally.

Tourism is another advantage of the ocean. Lots of people, businesses or companies make a lot of money off the tourism industry. Another advantage is the food we eat like cod fish, crab, scallops, macrel, hering, and many other things. Also the people who catch our food from the ocean are provided with jobs. Transportation

is another advantage of the ocean. People use Different kinds of boats to get from one point to another.

More than 60 million gallons of oil enter the oceans every year. Some of this oil seeps from oil-bearing rock layers into the ocean as part of a natural process and tankers running aground spill oil and currently these accidents deposit about 37 million gallons of oil into the ocean every year. The largest amount of oil entering the ocean through human activity is the 363 million gallons that come from industrial waste and automobiles. When people pour their used motor oil into the ground or into a septic system, it eventually seeps into the groundwater. Coupled with industrial waste discharged into rivers, oil becomes part of the run off from waterways that empty into the ocean. All of this oil affects ocean ecosystems. When it comes to mixing oil and water, oceans suffer from far more than an occasional devastating spill. Disasters make headlines, but hundreds of millions of gallons of oil quietly end up in the seas every year, mostly from non-accidental sources. Animals also are affected By oil spills. They may perish when the oil slicks their fur or downy feathers, decreasing the surface area so they are no longer insulated from the cold water. Or the animals may ingest the oil, then become sick or unable to reproduce properly. When an oil spill occurs along a coastline, it affects the human population as well as wildlife. Emergency equipment and personnel must be rushed to the scene. The responsible party must be identified to determine who will pay for the cleanup. Usually the cleanup is a group effort by oil companies, government agencies, local groups, and volunteers. People rescue and clean birds and animals and painstakingly scrub the oil from the rocky shores with brushes and detergent. Coming in by sea and by air, crews skim the spreading oil from the water’s surface. Oil that cannot be skimmed is emulsified-that is, droplets of oil are scattered into tiny particles that will then float away and disperse out to sea. Sometimes microscopic helpers are put to work. Genetic engineers have developed oil eating bacteria that can be used to ingest the oil, to clean up long after the crews and volunteers have left. The experience gained from several well publicized oil spills has ushered in an era of greater understanding and international cooperation with regard to containing spills and avoiding environmental disasters that affect our global ocean. One bright spot of news is that ecologists revisiting oil spill sites have found marine population recovery better than they had predicted.

Metals and slowly degrading chemicals threaten inland and coastal waters. Toxic materials settle into sea floor sediments where they accumulate as hazards to organisms that live in and feed on bottom mud. Eventually, long lasting chemicals may enter the food web and contaminate the fish and shellfish we eat.

When plastics end up in the sea, they pose hazards to marine life. Animals drown or strangle from getting tangled in discarded or lost fishing gear such as fishing nets, or suffer and even die from eating plastics and other garbage. But when plastic reaches our waters, whether it be plastic bags or drifting fish nets, it poses a threat to the animals that depend on the oceans for food. To a sea turtle, a floating plastic bag looks like a jellyfish. And plastic pellets the small hard pieces of plastic from which plastic products are made look like fish eggs to seabirds. Drifting nets entangle birds, fish and mammals, making it difficult, if not impossible to move or eat. As our consumption of plastic mounts, so too does the danger to marine life.

For thousands of years humans have viewed oceans as vast dumps for domestic, municipal, and industrial garbage tons of sediments dredged from harbours and waterways, sewage sludge, toxic industrial by products, even low level radioactive waste. These materials may never become evenly diluted into a weakened mixture, and ocean processes may even concentrate some materials. Land based alternatives for disposal also pose problems.

Around the world, untreated sewage flows into coastal waters, carrying organic waste and nutrients that can lead to oxygen depletion, as well as disease causing bacteria and parasites that require closing beaches and shellfish beds.

The ocean has a lot of advantage like jobs, transportation, food, and a source of many materials. But along with these advantages comes a lot of dangers like oil spills, untreated sewage, pollution, chemicals and many other things. I think that we should try to do our best to try and stop these dangers.