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.