Ocean Science Saturday: The Pelagic Zone

The Pelagic Zone
In order to learn about a new subject, it is necessary to learn the vocabulary of that subject. Every subject has its own specialized own vocabulary. If it’s a scientific subject, the vocabulary features words usually culled from Latin or Greek or both.

So we’ll start with the two basic regions of the ocean – the pelagic zone, or water column, and the benthic zone, or seafloor.

The word pelagic is from the Latin – and later adopted by the Greeks and was first used in English around 1650–60; < Latin pelagicus < Greek pelagikós, equivalent to pélag ( os ) the sea + -ikos -ic

The pelagic zone (everything in the water) is divided into:
Coastal zone (neritic)
Oceanic zone

Neritic is derived perhaps from the Latin nērīta (sea mussel), or from the Greek nērítēs, ( Nereus – the Greek myth a sea god who lived in the depths of the sea with his wife Doris and their daughters the Nereides) ]

The dictionary definition of neritic: of or pertaining to the shore or coast, used to refer to continental margins, the overlying water, and the organisms that live there.

The oceanic zone is divided into:
1. mesopelagic - of, pertaining to, or living in the ocean at a depth of between 600 feet (180 meters) and 3000 feet (900 meters).

Meso is Greek, and in a slightly diffrent form, Latin, for Middle. So this is the Middle pelagic zone

2. bathypelagic - of, relating to, or inhabiting the lower depths of the ocean between approximately 1000 and 4000 metres

Bathy - [from the Greek bathus deep]

3. abyssal pelagic - of or pertaining to the biogeographic zone of the ocean bottom between the bathyal and hadal zones: from depths of approximately 13,000 to 21,000 feet (4000 to 6500 meters).

Abyssal is from the Latin Abyssus and the Greek Abyssos - bottom of the sea