O.W.T: Ocean Waves and Tides

Hi! This is my second blog on oceans. This time I am going to talk about Waves and Tides. This blog will be about what causes ocean surface waves and what causes ocean tides.

   


    Wind that pushes the waves to shore are what cause ocean surface waves. There are different parts to a wave like the wave length or height. The wave length is the distance between two waves. The wave height is how big it is from the top of the wave to the bottom of the wave. When I say the bottom of the wave I mean at the surface of the water.The crest is the highest point on the wave. The trough is the lowest part of the wave. Surfers try to ride the crest of the wave.

  Now, it is time for the next paragraph. Tsunamis are waves caused by a movement in the water. They can be caused by a volcano, earthquake, landslide or a glacier breaking. Tsunamis get bigger and slower when they get close to shore. That happens to every wave, but a Tsunami wave is one giant wall of water.


  Now time to blog about tides. Tides are what happens when the sea level rises. Tides are caused mostly by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. Sea level is the average surface level of the ocean.

  There are different types of tides and they depend on where you are and if it is a full moon or a new moon. If you live close to the equator then you will probably have a neap tide. Neap tides have the smallest tidal range and happen when the sun and moon form a right angle. If you live away from the equator you are less likely to get a neap tide, instead you will probably get a spring tide. Spring tides have the largest tidal range and happen when the sun and moon form a straight line. Tidal range is the difference between one areas high and low tide.

 

That is the end of my blog. Bye!

Click HERE for more about tides.

Click HERE to learn more about Tsunamis.

Click HERE to learn more about parts of a wave.

Oceans!

 Hello, you can tell by my title you are going to learn about the body of water that covers about 70% of Earth's surface.Why oceans are  salty, what the sources of the Earth's oceans, features of the ocean floor and some different zones of the oceans are going to be on this blog.
  First topic is why are oceans salty. The reason the oceans are salty is because a bunch of rain kept falling to the ground and dissolved minerals in rocks that created the different salts. This happened billions of years ago. The minerals that were dissolved were Chlorine, Sodium, Sulfate, Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium and other salts.



   Next part of my blog is about how the Oceans formed and what are the sources. The oceans were beginning to form about 4.2 billion years ago. There are two theories of how the oceans were made. The first theory is that volcanoes continuously erupted and created a lot of gas and gas is made up of water vapor. The gas continued to form until it created the atmosphere. Then when the water vapor kept building up and created clouds. Those clouds then collected water vapor then let it go and it rained for thousands of years which finally created the oceans.
   The other theory of how the oceans were formed was that asteroids and comets that fell to Earth had ice on them that melted and created the oceans.


   The Sea floor is the next part of this blog. The seafloor has a lot in common with the land. It has mountains, trenches, canyons, plateaus and many other forms of land. The continental margin stretches from the land to the deep ocean. Inside of the continental margin is two more areas called the continental shelf and slope. The Continental shelf is the part of the ocean that is close to land and shallow. The continental slope is the part that goes from the continental shelf to the deep ocean.
  The next part of the seafloor is the Abyssal plain. In the Abyssal plain it is smooth and flat at the deepest part of the ocean. Volcanoes grow here and create islands that go up to the surface. The Abyssal plains go from the continental margin to the mid-ocean ridge on both sides of the ocean. Trenches form at a convergent boundary. Convergent boundaries are where two plates meet and one goes under the other and is destroyed. When the other plate goes under it creates a trench. These trenches are really deep. 
  The last part of the seafloor is the mid-ocean ridge. The mid-ocean ridge is made up of volcanic mountains that are formed by the Earth's tectonic plates moving apart. It is directly in the middle of the ocean.



   The last thing I am going to blog about is the ocean zones. The ocean is split up into five main zones. The zones are The Sunlight zone, The Twilight Zone, The Midnight Zone, The Abyss and The Trenches.
   We can only see the sunlight zone from above the water.The sunlight zone streches from the begining of the contenental shelf to the beggining of the contenental slope. It is about 200 meters deep. The twighlight zone is where the sunlight barely reaches. It is about 800 meters deep. That is four times as deep as the sunlight zone. The next zone is the Mid-night zone. In this place no sunlight is seen. The Mid-night zone is almost 3,000 meters deep. The abyss is the last zone before the ocean floor. The abyss is about 2,000 meters deep. The trenches are the deepest part of the ocean. They go about 5,000 meters deep.




Click HERE to learn about the different zones of the ocean.
Click HERE to learn about the history of the ocean.
Click HERE to learn why the ocean is salty.
                                  Bye

2011 to 2012

 Hi I am doing a blog to talk about what happened last year and what I look forward to in 2012. I will blog about what I like the most from 2011, what I did over winter break, what I want to achieve this year and what I am looking forward to this year.


  One of the things that happened in 2011 was that I went on a Carnival cruise that went to Jamaica, Key West and Grand Cayman. In Key West I did not do much we walked around saw the animals and plants. In Grand Cayman we went snorkeling and saw a sunken ship. In Jamaica we went to Dunn's river falls and Mystic mountain.


  Over the break I went down to Orlando and saw Disney World with my family. We went to animal kingdom the first day and saw a bunch of animals like giraffes, hippos, lions and rhinos on the safari ride. I also went on Kali river rapids and it was not very good. You wait about an hour for a 30 second ride. The park has a big fake tree in the middle of the park and it is called the tree of life. It is made up of statues of every animal that lives in the wild. Later in the day they had a parade and had a float for each animal species.





  The next day we went to Epcot and saw some different countries. They had Mexico, Norway, Japan, China, France, Italy, Morocco, Germany, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada.I also went on test track and mission space. On Test Track you are a test dummy riding in a car and you are put through some test to see if the car works. On Mission Space it makes you feel like your going to space and landing on Mars.



 
  
  The next day we went to Hollywood Studios. We went on Star Tours where you travel through some of the worlds shown on star wars.We went on toy story mania and used our tickets to get a fast pass for it or you would wait about two hours for the ride. We also saw a show called Fantasmic and it had all the Disney characters and it was talking about Mickey's imagination fighting against all the villains. After the show we saw the moving Osborn lights. The people decorated a section of the park to be light up at night.










  
  The last park I went to was Magic Kingdom. You have to either take the monorail or the boat. I went on Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Then around closing there was a parade, a show on the Disney castle and fireworks.












 Something I want to achieve in 2012 is getting a higher score on NWEA than last year. I also want to get all A's on my report card.


 I am looking forward to the field trips and being back at school. I am looking forward to summer vacation and going on a summer trip.I am looking forward to being in 7th grade after the summer.

Dolphins and whales

   Today I am going to be blogging about dolphins and whales. I am going to have the characteristics of both,their diet,where they can be found and name some creatures in both groups.

     
  First, I am going to blog about dolphins. Dolphins are mammals which means they feed their babies with milk made by the mother. They also breathe air through a blowhole in the top of their head and they have to breathe every few minutes. Mammals also do not lay eggs, except for the platypus. Dolphins can be found in every ocean in the world and sometimes in rivers.Dolphins can vault out of water because of their tails.Some dolphins have been able to reach 55 miles per hour! Dolphins are very intelligent mammals. Their brain is about the same size as a humans and can be easily trained.Dolphins usually travel in a pod.The word pod means group.




    Here is a picture of a dolphin brain compared to a humans

    When people think about dolphins the bottle nose dolphin comes to mind.The bottle nose dolphin can grow up to 4 meters in length.The smallest dolphin is the Hector's dolphin which can grow up to 1 meter long.The largest whale is the Orca or killer  whale which can grow up to 10 meters long.

  

When dolphins have to get some rest they do not completly go to sleep. Half of their brain goes to sleep while the other half wathches for predators.

  Here is a picture of a bottle nose dolphin and a Killer whale.

                                                                                                                 

       


        Now on to whales. Whales are also mammals which means they breathe air, don't lay eggs and feed their babies milk which comes from the Mom. Whales are the largest mammals that exist at this moment.The blue whale is the largest whale in the world.When I think of a whale I think of a killer whale,beluga whale or a blue whale. The bad thing is that I am wrong. The killer whale is not a whale because it is a dolphin. Oh and the whale shark is only called a whale shark because of how big it is.It is really a shark because it does not breathe air.
     
    Whales are put into two groups toothed and baleen.Toothed whales include the killer whale,dolphins and the sperm whale. They eat squids,fish and sometimes seals depending on how big they are.Baleen means that the animal is a filter feeder. Filter feeders usually have big mouths but eat small animals like krill or shrimp.Some of the whales in this group include blue whales and humpback whales. I know that sounds kind of weird since they have big mouths.


This is a picture of a whale shark.

    






Click  HERE to go to the national geographics page on killer whales
Click HERE to go to the national geographics page on bottlenose dolphins
Click HERE to go to the  Enchanted learning website on whales
Click HERE to learn more about dolphins

What are we gonna learn?

   

    Hey you are probably wondering what are we going to learn about.I know my Title does not help at all. We are going to learn about Seasons and what in the world makes leaves change colors.
   

   First,seasons are caused by the tilting of the Earth.The Earth is split into 2 sections the north and South hemisphere and is  tilted about 23.5 degrees.Globes are tilted because the Earth is too.The Earth spins on it's axis every day.One full rotation means one day.The axis are imaginary lines that go from the North pole to the South pole.

  While the Earth spins around on its' axis it is also orbiting around the Sun.Since it is tilted the hemispheres have different angles on how the sun hits them.If it is winter in the northern hemisphere it is summer in the southern hemisphere.

  The leaves change color because the sun stays out for a shorter .In autumn the leaves turn different colors because the clorophyll goes away  and the other colors are now visible.The clorophyll is what makes the leaves green.

                                                
  

Click HERE to go to a website with more info.
Click HERE for more info.
Click HERE for more info.



                                                   Bye

Volcanoes

     Hi today I am blogging about Volcanoes! Volcanoes are the Earth's creators and destroyers. You are probably thinking how can a volcano be a creator and destroyer. Well you will learn about that and how a volcano is formed,what causes it to erupt and what types of volcanoes there are.


  Here are two pictures of volcanoes.(please note that these volcanoes are not real)

   


     First,there are three ways a volcano can be formed. The first way a volcano is called a Convergent boundary. Convergent boundaries cause two plates collide and one goes under the other. When one plate falls under another it starts to melt down into magma. The plate is usually the oceanic plate that goes under the other plate.


                        Here is a picture of a convergent boundary.


                       


    The second way a volcano can be formed is in a Divergent boundary. In a Divergent boundary the two plates move away from each other because of the magma from the mantle. Then the magma cools and becomes part of the crust and the cycle starts again.


                         Here is a picture of a Divergent boundary.

                   

   The last way a volcano can be formed is by a hot spot. The way a hot spot can create a volcano is by letting the rocks from the Earth's mantle  come up through the crust. Hawaii's islands were made from a hot spot.


                      Here is a picture of a hot spot volcano.

         


    Most volcanoes are found around the Ring of Fire. The only time a volcano is not on the ring of fire is when a hot spot occurs. The Ring of Fire is a bunch of volcanoes that are all around the Pacific plate.



                      Here is a picture of the Ring of Fire.

    Next is the different types of volcanoes about the different types of volcanoes. The first type of volcanoes are called Shield volcanoes. Shield volcanoes are big and have smooth gentle slopes that were formed by basaltic lava. They are usually found around Divergent boundaries and hot spots in the ocean.


                        Here is a picture of a shield volcano.

    Now for the Composite volcanoes. Composite volcanoes are very tall and steep sided volcanoes. They are formed by explosive eruptions. They are usually found around Convergent boundaries.


                    Here is a picture of a Composite volcano.

   The last one is the Cinder cone volcano. Cinder cone volcanoes are very dangerous. They are like super volcanoes because of how much lava,rocks and volcanic ash. Volcanic ash is a bunch of dust,smoke and derbies that fly out of a volcano. Lava is the molten rock that is on the surface. The molten rock is called magma only when it is still in the mantle.


                    Here is a picture of a Cinder cone volcano.

     Next is how do you determine the eruption style of a volcano. You can determine it by it's magma chemistry. I mean like the viscosity of the lava. Viscosity means a liquids resistance to flow. If something has low viscosity means that it flows easily like warm maple syrup. If something has high viscosity it means that it does not flow easily.


     








The last thing in this blog is how are volcanoes are classified. Volcanoes are classified by their shape and their size. If a volcano is small and steep sided it is classified as a Cinder cone volcano. If a volcano is big and not steep sided it is classified as a shield volcano. If a volcano is tall and steep sided it is a composite volcano.





Click HERE for more info
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                            Hope you enjoyed my blog.


                    Here are some pictures of stick figures.

                                BYE!                                     

Tsunamis

   This blog is going to be on tsunamis.  Have you ever wondered why and how a tsunami happens,well I am going to explain.

                                                  This is what a tsunami can look like.
 

  First plate tectonics are related to tsunamis because plate tectonics cause tsunami!  When plates move under water they cause an earthquake, landslide or a under water volcano.  When that happens a sudden burst of energy  is released which causes a tsunami.
   
                                          Here is a diagram on how  a tsunami is formed.

     These waves can get very big and you do not want to be in their path when they come.


     Now I will blog about how a tsunami travels.  A tsunami wave can hold a lot of energy which means it can go very far.  A tsunami wave can go up to 500 miles per hour.  Wow!  That is fast.  A tsunami wave is not like a regular wave just because of it's size but also how it travels.  When it travels it stays under the water.  That is why if you are way out in the ocean you can not feel the wave, but if you were on shore you are in trouble.  When a tsunami wave travels it does not just go in one direction, it goes in a circle from the epicenter.  You know like when you throw a rock into a pond or someone jumps into the water it moves in all directions.

                                                  Here is a picture of a tsunami.

     Next is what happens when it impacts the shore.  When a tsunami wave gets closer to shore it starts to slow down which causes the water to recede from the shore about a few meters.  Then more waves build up and the water just gets so high that it floods the shore and it looks like a wall of water.  There is also another way a tsunami can hit the shore.  It is when the shore slows the water down enough that it comes in as a giant wave depending on the coastline structure.

              This is what it sometimes looks like when a tsunami hits shore.

Click HERE for a video
Click HERE for more info
Click HERE for some facts on tsunamis
Click HERE for more info


   BYE!!BYE!!BYE!!BYE!!BYE!!BYE!!BYE!!