Living Together: Symbiotic Relationships
The relationship between some of the algae and animals living in a coral reef is symbiotic, meaning the two species live together. Symbiotic relationships between residents of coral reefs or other communities can be mutu..
Living Together: Threats to Coral Reefs
Symbiosis within a reef community can be threatened by a number of factors. These include severe storms, nutrient discharge from farming and agriculture, and a process known as bleaching, which may be related to global w..
Look Out Below: Growth of a Tsunami
A tsunami wave usually begins as barely a ripple above the surface out in the open ocean, often thousands of miles from its ultimate destination. By the time it reaches shore, a tsunami may have grown to nearly a hundred..
Look Out Below: Impact of Rising Sea Level
Sea level is rising about two millimeters per year. For those people and structures located along shorelines, this could eventually be a serious problem.
Look Out Below: Monitoring Sea Level Changes
Monitoring sea level change has not been easy because of difficulties in measuring sea level in some places. Improvements in satellite technology, however, have enabled scientists to cover a much greater area than ever b..
Look Out Below: Sea Level and Global Warming
The precise role that global warming plays in determining sea level is a subject of considerable controversy. But many scientists believe there is a link.
Look Out Below: Tsunami and Tectonic Events
Tsunami are usually the product of a tectonic event, such as an earthquake. They most commonly take place in the Pacific Rim region, because of the relatively higher frequency of large, shallow earthquakes in this area.
Making the Pieces Fit: Alfred Wegener and Continental Drift
Alfred Wegener proposed the idea of continental drift to explain the jigsaw puzzle fit of the continents. Wegner argued that the continents had all been joined together at one time as a super continent he called Pangaea...
Making the Pieces Fit: Birth of a Theory: Plate Tectonics
Canadian geophysicist John Tuzo Wilson argued that Earth's outer layer consists of about a dozen separate plates, which float on the partially melted asthenosphere below them. His ideas paved the way for the integration ..
Making the Pieces Fit: Coastlines and Jigsaw Puzzles
The scientific work that would eventually lead to the Theory of Plate Tectonics began with observations that the coastlines of Africa and South America are strikingly similar.