Mad About Science: More wild ocean facts

By Brenden Bobby
Reader Columnist

Akin to the tide rolling in, I’ve returned with more weird and wild facts about the ocean. We already know about lava vents hot enough to instantly scorch a steak and the millions of pounds of pressure that can crush us at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, so how much crazier could it get?

Black holes.

Courtesy photo.

In astronomy, black holes are incredibly massive objects with such an intense gravitational pull that they can manipulate everything from matter to light. Photons that pass through part of a black hole will curve their trajectory and create a “bubble” effect around the black hole, which allows us to identify them even though we can’t directly see them. They don’t reflect light, but they can warp it.

It turns out that the ocean contains a very similar effect to these astronomical phenomena. There are a number of major currents that run through the world’s oceans, with the most prominent being the Gulf Stream, which begins along the equator and follows the Atlantic Coast of North America before rushing towards the British Isles, Iceland and the Arctic Circle. 

This is one of those self-regulating temperature systems we learned about last week. As water reaches its terminus in the Gulf Stream, it begins to break away and create spinning eddies that become extremely powerful. These eddies act similarly to a black hole, grabbing everything they pass through and locking them securely within their spiraling borders.

These eddies are huge structures with diameters of up to 93 miles. Their force is so powerful that they won’t allow water within their borders to escape to the surrounding ocean and are capable of creating temperature differences inside and outside of their boundary. The eddies will carry microorganisms such as plankton and tiny shrimp, as well as spilled oil and human trash like plastics as they drift about the ocean.

Scientists discovered that these giant eddies seem to have some mitigating factor on melting Antarctic ice by transporting warm salty water away from the continent. It’s not enough to slow climate change on its own, but it’s interesting to see some of the built-in failsafes that Earth has when facing massive climate change.

While the idea of a giant swirling vortex seems like a terrifying prospect, these eddies are important for transporting food sources for larger marine biology like whales and other filter feeders, while also regulating the global climate.

Not everything about the ocean is all doom and gloom. There’s an immense amount of gold in the ocean. So much gold, in fact, that if it were all harvested and distributed evenly between every human on the planet, each person would receive about 4 kilograms — an amount worth $247,485.01.

Before you buy a dinghy and a trawling net, you should know that the vast majority of this gold is tiny particulate matter — we’re talking parts per trillion in the water. There is a huge amount of undiluted gold at the bottom of the ocean, but there’s no way to reach it. The pressure would crush most mining equipment faster than an elephant making origami cranes.

Do you happen to know what the tallest waterfall in the world is? I see you pulling up Google on your phone!

Your mind might shoot straight to Niagara Falls, but at 325 feet tall, North America’s most famous falls are tiny compared to the 2,904-foot-tall Victoria Falls in Zambia and Zimbabwe, or the 4,209-foot Angel Falls in Venezuela. 

Neither of those two even come close to the Denmark Strait cataract, with its 11,500-foot plunge. But here’s the kicker: While the Denmark Strait cataract is the biggest waterfall in the world, it’s actually underwater.

How does that work? A ridge of rock in the Denmark Strait — between Greenland and Iceland — separates two bodies of water: cold water on one side flows toward the warmer water because, as you may know, warmth rises and cold sinks. The result is a magnificent spectacle of water falling beneath the waves.

As you may know, the farther down you travel in the ocean, the darker it becomes, as light cannot penetrate past a certain density of water. After 656 feet down, you wouldn’t be able to see much at all. This waterfall drops 11,500 feet, making most of the plunge a terrifying lightless experience. 

While all of these facts may seem interesting, the most awesome feature of this waterfall — in the literal sense of leaving your jaw agape and mind blank from its sheer magnitude — is the sheer volume of water passing through it. Every second, 123 million cubic feet of water passes through the Denmark Strait Cataract — 50,000 times the amount that pours through Niagara Falls.

The world’s great ocean is an incredible and mysterious thing. More humans have walked on the moon than have set foot in the Mariana Trench. It’s a powerful and precious thing, and something we should really try to take better care of.

Don’t forget to take some time to read this summer. Exercise your brain, earn some prizes from the library no matter your age and maybe you will be the one to figure out how to siphon up that gold from the ocean. If you figured out how to do that, you’d be the first multi-quadrillionaire with a bank account worth $1,955,131,579,000,000. Regardless, always tip your servers.

Stay curious, 7B.