The same cross-disciplinary approach has featured in Thomas Kiorboe's epoch-making study of '
marine snow' - tiny flakes of dead material that are hugely important for the ocean's carbon budget and the earth's climate.
In Opatija, Croatia, scientists use
marine snow to sequester carbon in the ocean.
To get down deep, carbon first has to pass through the twilight zone--much of it as part of an underwater blizzard of bioluminescent detritus known as
marine snow. That "snow" consists of clumps of dead plankton, shells, fecal pellets, bacteria, and other particles, which provide food for mesopelagic invertebrates and fish.
(2005) examined the roll of
marine snow in the transmission of the diseases between animals and aquaculture farms.
"
Marine snow," Orphan says, her face lighted only by the glow from the screens.
These particularly slimy flakes of "
marine snow" are made up of tiny dead and living organic matter, according to Uta Passow at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
At a depth of 13,000 feet, at a place known as the abyssal plain, sediment and "
marine snow" have formed a layer of "ooze" that may be thousands of feet thick.
About 300 of the terms are new or revised for this edition, including aragonite, biogeochemical cycling, euphotic zone, Global Ocean Observing System, International Polar Year,
marine snow, sea ice biome, and trace metals.
Deep-sea creatures anywhere typically survive on debris settling from above, what biologists call "
marine snow." The debris "has usually already been through two or three bodies on the way down, so there's not much nutrition left," she says.