Marine life

Marine life, or sea life or ocean life, is the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the salt water of the sea or ocean, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. Marine organisms produce oxygen. Shorelines are in part shaped and protected by marine life, and some marine organisms even help create new land. Most life forms evolved initially in marine habitats. By volume, oceans provide about 90 percent of the living space on the planet. The earliest vertebrates appeared in the form of fish, which live exclusively in water. Some of these evolved into amphibians which spend portions of their lives in water and portions on land. Other fish evolved into land mammals and subsequently returned to the ocean as seals, dolphins or whales. Plant forms such as kelp and algae grow in the water and are the basis for some underwater ecosystems. Plankton, and particularly phytoplankton, are key primary producers forming the general foundation of the ocean food chain. Marine invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters, including breathing tubes as in mollusc siphons. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. Marine mammals, such as dolphins, whales, otters, and seals need to surface periodically to breathe air. A total of 230,000 documented marine species exist, including about 20,000 species of marine fish, with some two million marine species yet to be documented. Marine species range in size from the microscopic, including plankton and phytoplankton which can be as small as 0.02 micrometres, to huge cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises), including the blue whale – the largest known animal reaching up to 33 metres (108 ft) in length. Marine microorganisms, including bacteria and viruses, constitute about 70% of the total marine biomass. There is no life without water. It has been described as the universal solvent for its ability to dissolve many substances, and as the solvent of life. Water is the only common substance to exist as a solid, liquid, and gas under conditions normal to life on Earth. The Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi referred to water as the mater und matrix: the mother and womb of life. The abundance of surface water on Earth is a unique feature in the Solar System. Earth's hydrosphere consists chiefly of the oceans, but technically includes all water surfaces in the world, including inland seas, lakes, rivers, and underground waters down to a depth of 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) The deepest underwater location is Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, having a depth of 10,900 metres (6.8 mi). The mass of the oceans is 1.35×1018 metric tons, or about 1/4400 of Earth's total mass. The oceans cover an area of 3.618×108 km2 with a mean depth of 3682 m, resulting in an estimated volume of 1.332×109 km3. If all of Earth's crustal surface was at the same elevation as a smooth sphere, the depth of the resulting world ocean would be about 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi). About 97.5% of the water on Earth is saline; the remaining 2.5% is fresh water. Most fresh water – about 69% – is present as ice in ice caps and glaciers. The average salinity of Earth's oceans is about 35 grams (1.2 oz) of salt per kilogram of seawater (3.5% salt). Most of the salt in the ocean comes from the weathering and erosion of rocks on land. Some salts are released from volcanic activity or extracted from cool igneous rocks.