In the deep ocean, marine snow is a continuous shower of mostly organic detritus falling from the upper layers of the water column. It is a significant means of exporting energy from the light-rich ph
Marine snow is a shower of organic material falling from upper waters to the deep ocean.
Aerial view of Slapton Sands and northern part of Ley geograph.org.uk 1434412
Great Barracuda off the Netherland Antilles
The biological pump is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the ocean interior and seafloor sediments. In other words, it is a biologically me
Marine snow
…the water column. It is a significant means of exporting energy from the light-rich photic zone to the aphotic zone below, which is referred to as the biological pump. Export production is the amount of organic matter produced in the ocean by primary production that is not recycled (remineralised) before it sinks…
The pelagic food web, showing the central involvement of marine microorganisms in how the ocean imports carbon and then exports it back to the atmosphere and ocean floor
Pump processes vary with depthPhotic zone: 0–100 m; Mesopelagic: 100–1000 m; Bathypelagic: 1000 to abyssal depths. Below 1000 m depth carbon is considered removed from the atmosphere for at least 100 years. Scavenging: DOC incorporation within sinking particles.
Particulate inorganic carbon budget for Hudson Bay Black arrows represent DIC produced by PIC dissolution. Grey lines represent terrestrial PIC. Units are Tg C y−1
The coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi (µm = thousandth of one mm)