Saturday, February 20, 2010

What Are The Ocean Sciences?

When the average person thinks of "ocean sciences," he or she thinks of oceanography. But there are a vast number of disciplines that study the oceans - and we will cover them all in Seaborn.

Marine biology (Biological oceanography) -- the study of the plants, animals and microbes of the oceans and their ecological interaction with the ocean

Marine chemistry (Chemical oceanography) -- the study of the chemistry of the ocean and its chemical interaction with the atmosphere

Marine geology (Geological oceanography) --the study of the geology of the ocean floor including plate tectonics

Marine physics (Physical oceanography) -- the study of the ocean's physical attributes including temperature-salinity structure, mixing, waves, internal waves, surface tides, internal tides, and currents.

Acoustical oceanography -- the behavior of sound under water

Optical oceanography -- the study of light and radio waves in the ocean.

Because of this wide variety of disciplines beneath the oceanography umbrella, oceanographers also need a thorough grounding in mathematics. We will not deal with math in this blogzine, but we will provide links to other sites that will help with math, and we encourage girls to work hard on their math skills and not let the stereotype that "girls always have problems with math" discourage you. That is not actually true...as the thousands of women scientists can attest. Here is a website for young girls that will help them learn about math and how important - and easy - it is: http://www.girlstart.com (at least to start with!)

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