Resources of the World Ocean

Resources of the World Ocean

Mineral resources

The oceans, which occupy about 71% of the surface of our planet, are a huge storehouse of mineral wealth. Mineral resources within its limits are enclosed in two different environments - in fact, in the oceanic water mass, as the main part of the hydrosphere, and in the underlying earth's crust, as part of the lithosphere. According to the state of aggregation and, accordingly, the operating conditions, they are divided into:

1) liquid, gaseous and dissolved, exploration and production of which is possible with the help of boreholes (oil, natural gas, salt, sulfur, etc.); 2) hard surface, the operation of which is possible with the help of dredges, hydraulic and other similar methods (metal-bearing placers and silts, nodules, etc.); 3) solid buried, the exploitation of which is possible by mine methods (coal, iron and some other ores).

The division of the mineral resources of the World Ocean into two large classes is also widely used: hydrochemical and geological resources. Hydrochemical resources include seawater itself, which can also be considered as a solution containing many chemical compounds and trace elements. The geological include those mineral resources that are in surface layer and the bowels of the earth's crust.

The hydrochemical resources of the oceans are elements salt composition ocean and sea waters that can be used for household needs. According to modern estimates, such waters contain about 80 chemical elements. V the greatest number the oceanosphere contains compounds of chlorine, sodium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, the concentration of which (in mg / l) is quite high; this group includes hydrogen and oxygen. All this creates the basis for the development of the "marine" chemical industry.

The geological resources of the World Ocean are the resources of mineral raw materials and fuels, which are no longer contained in the hydrosphere, but in the lithosphere, that is, associated with the ocean floor. They can be subdivided into shelf resources, continental slope and deep seafloor. Main role among them are the resources of the continental shelf, covering an area of ​​31.2 million km2, or 8.6% of the total ocean area.

The most famous and valuable mineral resource of the World Ocean is hydrocarbons: oil and natural gas. When characterizing the oil and gas resources of the World Ocean, usually, first of all, they mean the most accessible resources of its shelf. The largest oil and gas basins on the shelf Atlantic Ocean explored off the coast of Europe (North Sea), Africa (Guinea), Central America (Caribbean), smaller ones - off the coast of Canada and the United States, Brazil, in the Mediterranean and some other seas. In the Pacific Ocean, such basins are known off the coasts of Asia, North and South America, and Australia. V Indian Ocean the leading place in reserves is occupied by the Persian Gulf, but oil and gas have also been found on the shelf of India, Indonesia, Australia, and in the Arctic Ocean - off the coast of Alaska and Canada (Beaufort Sea) and off the coast of Russia (Barents and Kara Seas). The Caspian Sea should be added to this list.

Except oil and natural gas, resources of solid minerals are associated with the shelf of the World Ocean. By the nature of their occurrence, they are subdivided into primary and alluvial.

The bedrock deposits of coal, iron, copper-nickel ores, tin, mercury, sodium chloride and potassium salts, sulfur and some other buried minerals are usually genetically associated with the deposits and basins of the adjacent parts of the land. They are known in many coastal regions of the World Ocean, and in some places they are developed with the help of mines and adits.

Coastal-marine placers of heavy metals and minerals should be sought in the border zone of land and sea - on beaches and lagoons, and sometimes in a strip of ancient beaches flooded by the ocean.

Of the metals contained in such placers, the most important is the tin ore - cassiterite, which occurs in the coastal-marine placers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Around the "tin islands" of this area, they can be traced at a distance of 10-15 km from the coast and to a depth of 35 m. Off the coast of Japan, Canada, New Zealand and some other countries, reserves of ferruginous (titanomagnetite and monazite) sands have been explored, off the coast of the USA and Canada - gold-bearing sands, off the coast of Australia - bauxite. Coastal-marine placers of heavy minerals are even more widespread. First of all, this applies to the coast of Australia (ilmenite, zircon, rutile, monazite), India and Sri Lanka (ilmenite, monazite, zircon), the USA (ilmenite, monazite), Brazil (monazite). Placer diamond deposits are known off the coast of Namibia and Angola.

Phosphorites occupy a somewhat special position in this list. Large deposits of them were found on the shelf of the western and eastern coasts of the United States, in the strip of the Atlantic coast of Africa, along the Pacific coast of South America.

Of the other solid mineral resources, the most interesting are the ferromanganese nodules, first discovered more than a hundred years ago by the British expeditionary vessel Challenger. Although nodules are called ferromanganese, since they contain 20% manganese and 15% iron, they also contain in smaller amounts nickel, cobalt, copper, titanium, molybdenum, rare earths and other valuable elements - more than 30 in total. Therefore, in fact, they are polymetallic ores ... The main accumulations of nodules are located in the Pacific Ocean, where they occupy an area of ​​16 million km2.

In addition to nodules, there are ferromanganese crusts on the ocean floor that cover rocks in the zones of mid-nooceanic ridges. These crusts are often located at depths of 1-3 km. Interestingly, they contain much more manganese than ferromanganese nodules. They also contain ores of zinc, copper, and cobalt.

Russia, which has a very long coastline, also owns the most extensive continental shelf in terms of area (6.2 million km2, or 20% of the world shelf, of which 4 million km2 are promising for oil and gas). Large reserves of oil and gas have already been discovered on the shelf of the Northern Arctic Ocean- primarily in the Barents and Kara Seas, as well as in the Okhotsk Sea (off the coast of Sakhalin). According to some estimates, 2/5 of all potential natural gas resources are associated with the seas in Russia. V coastal zone placer deposits and carbonate deposits are also known, which are used to obtain building materials.

Energetic resources

The World Ocean contains huge, truly inexhaustible resources of mechanical and thermal energy, moreover, constantly renewable. The main types of such energy are the energy of tides, waves, oceanic (sea) currents and temperature gradient.

The energy of the tides attracts especially attention. Tidal phenomena have been known to people since time immemorial and in the life of many coastal countries they played and play very big role, to some extent determining the entire rhythm of their lives.

It is common knowledge that ebb and flow occurs twice a day. In the open ocean, the amplitude between full and low water is about 1 m, but within the continental shelf, especially in bays and estuaries of rivers, it can be much larger. The total energy capacity of tides is usually estimated from 2.5 billion to 4 billion kW. We add that the energy of only one tidal cycle reaches about 8 trillion. kWh, which is only slightly less than the total world electricity generation for a whole year. Hence the energy sea ​​tides- an inexhaustible source of energy.

We also add such a distinctive feature of tidal energy as its constancy. The ocean, unlike rivers, does not know either high-water or low-water years. In addition, he "works on schedule" with an accuracy of several minutes. Due to this, the amount of electricity generated at tidal power plants (TPS) can always be known in advance - in contrast to conventional hydroelectric power plants, where the amount of energy received depends on the regime of the river, associated not only with the climatic features of the territory through which it flows, but also with the weather. conditions,

It is believed that the Atlantic Ocean has the largest reserves of tidal energy. In its northwestern part, on the border between the United States and Canada, lies the Bay of Fundy, which is the inner taper of the more open Gulf of Maine. This bay is famous for the highest tides in the world, reaching 18 m. The tides are also very high off the coast of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. For example, off the coast of Baffin Land, they rise by 15.6 m.In the northeastern part of the Atlantic, tides of up to 10 and even 13 m are observed in the English Channel off the coast of France, in the Bristol Bay and the Irish Sea off the coast of Great Britain and Ireland.

The reserves of tidal energy in the Pacific Ocean are also great. In its northwestern part, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk is especially prominent, where in the Penzhinskaya Bay (northeastern part of Shelikhov Bay) the height tidal wave is 9-13 m. On the east coast of the Pacific Ocean, favorable conditions for the use of tidal energy are found off the coast of Canada, the Chilean archipelago in southern Chile, in the narrow and long Gulf of California in Mexico.

Within the Arctic Ocean, in terms of tidal energy reserves, the White Sea is distinguished, in the Mezen Bay of which the tides are up to 10 m high, and the Barents Sea off the coast of the Kola Peninsula (the tides are up to 7 m). In the Indian Ocean, the reserves of such energy are much less. Kach Bay of the Arabian Sea (India) and the northwestern coast of Australia are usually named here as promising for the construction of TPPs. However, in the deltas of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong and Irrawaddy, the tides are also 4-6 m.

The energy resources of the World Ocean also include the kinetic energy of waves. The total energy of wind waves is estimated at 2.7 billion kWh per year. Experiments have shown that it should be used not near the coast, where the waves arrive weakened, but in the open sea or in the coastal shelf zone. In some offshore areas, wave energy reaches a significant concentration; and the USA and Japan - about 40 kW per 1 m of the wavefront, and on the west coast of Great Britain - even 80 kW per 1 m.

Another energy resource of the World Ocean is oceanic (sea) currents, which have enormous energy potential. Thus, the discharge of the Gulf Stream even in the Florida Strait area is 25 million m3 / s, which is 20 times higher than the discharge of all rivers. the globe... And after the Gulf Stream joins the Antilles current in the ocean, its discharge increases to 82 million m3 / s. Attempts have been made more than once to calculate the potential energy of this stream 75 km wide and 700 - 800 m thick, moving at a speed of 3 m / s.

When they talk about the use of a temperature gradient, they mean the source of not mechanical, but thermal energy, contained in the mass of ocean waters. Typically, the difference in water temperatures on the ocean surface and at a depth of 400 m is 12 ° C. However, in the waters of the tropics, the upper layers of water in the ocean can have a temperature of 25-28 ° C, and the lower, at a depth of 1000 m, only 5 ° C. It is in such cases, when the temperature amplitude reaches 20 ° and more, that it is considered economically justified to use it to generate electricity at hydrothermal (more thermal) power plants.

In general, the energy resources of the World Ocean would be more correct to refer to the resources of the future.

Biological resources

The biological resources of the World Ocean are characterized not only by very large sizes, but also by exceptional diversity. The waters of the seas and oceans, in essence, represent a densely populated world of many living organisms: from microscopic bacteria to the largest animals on Earth - whales. In vast ocean spaces, from the sunlit surface to the dark and cold realm deep sea, inhabited by about 180 thousand species of animals, including 16 thousand different species of fish, 7.5 thousand species of crustaceans, about 50 thousand species of gastropods. There are also 10 thousand plant species in the oceans.

Based on the lifestyle and habitat, all organisms living in the oceans are usually divided into three classes.

The first class, which has the highest biomass and the greatest diversity of species, includes plankton, which, in turn, is subdivided into phytoplankton and zooplankton. Plankton is distributed mainly in the surface horizons of the oceanic strata (up to a depth of 100-150 m), and phytoplankton are mainly the smallest unicellular algae- serves as food for many species of zooplankton, which takes first place in the World Ocean in terms of biomass (20-25 billion tons).

The second class of marine organisms includes nekton. It includes all animals that can move independently in the water column of the seas and oceans. These are fish, whales, dolphins, walruses, seals, squids, shrimps, octopuses, turtles and some other species. The approximate estimate of the total biomass of nekton is 1 billion tons, half of which falls on fish.

The third class unites marine organisms that live on the ocean floor or in bottom sediments - benthos. Various species of bivalve molluscs (mussels, oysters, etc.), crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, lobsters), echinoderms (sea urchins) and other benthic animals can be named as representatives of zoobenthos; phytobenthos is represented primarily by various algae. In terms of biomass, zoobenthos (10 billion tons) is second only to zooplankton.

The geographical distribution of the biological resources of the World Ocean is extremely uneven. Within its limits, very highly productive, highly productive, medium productive, unproductive and the most unproductive areas are quite clearly distinguished. Naturally, the first two of them are of the greatest economic interest. Productive areas in the oceans can have the nature of latitudinal belts, which is largely due to the unequal distribution of solar energy. So, the following natural fishing belts are usually distinguished: arctic and antarctic, temperate belts of the northern and southern hemispheres, tropical-equatorial belt. The greatest economic value of them has a temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere.

For a more complete characterization of the geographical distribution of biological resources, their distribution between the separate oceans of the Earth is of great interest.

The first place in terms of both the total volume of biomass and the number of species is occupied by the Pacific Ocean. Its fauna is three to four times richer in species composition than other oceans. In fact, all types of living organisms inhabiting the World Ocean are represented here. The Pacific Ocean also differs from others in its high biological productivity, especially in the temperate and equatorial zones. But the biological productivity is even greater in the shelf zone: it is here that the vast majority of those marine animals that serve as objects of fishing live and spawn.

The biological resources of the Atlantic Ocean are also very rich and diverse. It stands out for its high average biological productivity. Animals inhabit the entire thickness of its waters. Large marine mammals (whales, pinnipeds), herring, cod and other fish species, crustaceans live in temperate and cold waters. In the tropical part of the ocean, the number of species is no longer measured in thousands, but in tens of thousands. Various organisms also live in its deep-sea horizons under conditions of tremendous pressure, low temperatures and eternal darkness.

The Indian Ocean also possesses significant biological resources, but they are less studied here and are used less so far. As for the Arctic Ocean, the predominant part of the cold and icy waters of the Arctic is unfavorable for the development of life and therefore is not very productive. Only in the Atlantic part of this ocean, in the zone of influence of the Gulf Stream, its biological productivity increases significantly.

Russia possesses very large and varied marine biological resources. This primarily applies to the seas Of the Far East, and the greatest diversity (800 species) is noted off the coast of the southern Kuril Islands, where cold-loving and thermophilic forms coexist. Of the seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea is the richest in biological resources.

In the World Ocean, according to various sources, there are 10 thousand species of plants (mainly algae) and 160-180 thousand species of animals, including 32 thousand species of various fish, 7.5 thousand species of crustaceans, more than 50 thousand species molluscs, 10 thousand species of unicellular ...

Biological resources of the World Ocean

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Resources of the World Ocean

Mineral resources The oceans, which occupy about 71% of the surface of our planet, are a huge storehouse of mineral wealth ...

Resources of the World Ocean

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The resources of the World Ocean are natural elements, substances and types of energy that are obtained or can be obtained directly from the waters, coastal land, the bottom or bowels of the oceans.

The oceans are a huge storeroom natural resources... Biological resources - fish, molluscs, crustaceans, cetaceans, algae. About 90% of the commercial objects being caught are fish. The offshore zone accounts for more than 90% of the global catch of fish and non-fish species. Most of the world's catch is taken in the waters of the temperate and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The Pacific Ocean provides the largest catch of the oceans. Of the seas of the World Ocean, the most productive are the Norwegian, Bering, Okhotsk, and Japanese.

Mineral resources of the World Ocean are solid, liquid and gaseous minerals. The coastal-marine placers contain zirconium, gold, platinum, and diamonds. The subsoil of the shelf zone is rich in oil and gas. The main areas of oil production are the Persian, Mexican, Gulfs of Guinea, the coast of Venezuela, the North Sea. There are offshore oil and gas regions in the Bering and Okhotsk Seas. Iron ore (off the coast of Kyushu Island, in the Hudson Bay), coal (Japan, Great Britain), and sulfur (USA) are mined from the subterranean depths. The main wealth of the deep ocean floor is ferromanganese nodules.

Sea water is also a resource of the World Ocean. It contains about 75 chemical elements. About 1/3 of the common salt produced in the world, 60% of magnesium, 90% of bromine and potassium are extracted from the waters of the seas. The waters of the seas in a number of countries are used for industrial desalination. The largest producers of fresh water are Kuwait, USA, Japan.

Energy resources are basically available mechanical and thermal energy of the World Ocean, from which tidal energy is mainly used. There are tidal power plants in France at the mouth of the Rane River, in Russia - the Kislogubskaya TPP on the Kola Peninsula. Projects for using the energy of waves and currents are being developed and partially implemented.

At heavy use resources of the oceans are polluted as a result of dumping industrial, agricultural, household and other waste into rivers and seas, shipping, mining. Oil pollution and the disposal of toxic substances and radioactive waste in the deep-sea parts of the ocean are of particular threat. The problems of the oceans require coordinated international measures to coordinate the use of its resources and prevent further pollution.

Ocean Photo: Christopher

The demand for bromine is largely due to the use of tetraethyl lead as an additive for gasoline, the production of which is declining, since this compound is a dangerous environmental pollutant.

In addition to these basic substances that the ocean gives to man, trace elements dissolved in its waters are of great interest for production. These, in particular, include those extracted from sea water so far in not large quantities lithium, boron, sulfur, as well as promising for technological and environmental reasons, gold and uranium.
A brief review of the modern use of the chemical resources of the oceans and seas shows that compounds and metals extracted from salt waters are already making a significant contribution to world production. Today's marine chemistry provides 6-7% of the income received from the development of the resources of the World Ocean.

World Ocean Resource Groups

The mineral resources of the World Ocean are divided into three groups. First of all, these are marine resources (natural gas, oil, coal, iron ore, tin). Half of the world's oil reserves are found in offshore fields, which are continuation of the mainland. The most famous offshore fields in the North Sea, Persian and Mexican Gulfs. The shelf is promising Barents Sea and Sakhalin. Already today, 1/3 of the oil is obtained from offshore fields. Coal (Great Britain, Canada, Japan, China) and sulfur (USA) are also mined on the shelf. In addition, waves and currents destroy the coastal part of the seabed, which is the source of coastal placers (alluvial deposits) containing diamonds, tin, gold, platinum, and amber. Mineral resources can be mined at seabed - Construction Materials, phosphorites, iron-manganese nodules. Ferromanganese nodules are 5-10 cm in diameter, their shape is predominantly round or flattened. They occur at depths of 100-7000 m. They are distributed in the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic oceans. In total, ore fields occupy 10% of the ocean floor area. The technologies for their extraction have already been developed, but they are not yet widely used. In the areas of the mid-oceanic ridges, in the places where hot springs emerge, significant reserves of ores of zinc, lead, copper and other metals are concentrated.

If the chemical elements dissolved in the waters of the world's oceans are of great value for mankind, then the solvent itself is no less valuable - water itself, which Academician AE Fersman figuratively called “the most essential mineral our Earth, which has no substitutes ”. Fresh water supply for agriculture, industry, household needs of the population at least important task than supplying production with fuel, raw materials, energy.
It is known that a person cannot live without fresh water, his needs for fresh water are growing rapidly and its deficit is becoming more and more acute. The rapid population growth, an increase in the area of ​​irrigated agriculture, and industrial consumption of fresh water have turned the problem of water shortage from a local to a global one. An important reason for the shortage of fresh water lies in the uneven water supply to the land. Precipitation is unevenly distributed, river flow resources are unevenly distributed. For example, in our country 80% of water resources are concentrated in Siberia and the Far East in sparsely populated areas. Such large agglomerations as the Ruhr or the megalopolis Boston, New York, Finland, Washington, with tens of millions of inhabitants, require huge water resources that local sources do not have.

They are trying to solve problems in several interrelated directions:

Rationalize water use in order to minimize water losses and transfer part of the water from areas with excessive moisture to areas where there is a lack of moisture;
cardinal and effective measures prevent pollution of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and other reservoirs and create large reserves of fresh water;
expand the use of new sources of fresh water.

Today, these are available for use underground waters, desalination of ocean and sea waters, obtaining fresh water from icebergs.
One of the most effective and promising ways to provide fresh water is the desalination of the saline waters of the World Ocean, all the more so because large areas of arid and low-watered territories adjoin its shores or are close to them. Thus, ocean and sea waters serve as raw materials for industrial use. Their huge reserves are practically inexhaustible, but at the present level of technological development, they cannot be profitably exploited everywhere due to the content of dissolved substances in them.



The topic of this work is relevant, since the World Ocean is the largest repository of minerals. Mankind has known the vast expanses of land and boldly stepped into space, but the ocean - most of the planet Earth - still remains a mystery. We can safely say that less is known about the vast areas of the seabed than about the surface of the moon.

The seas, covering three quarters of the earth's surface, are, of course, more accessible than outer space. However, penetration into the secrets of the most extensive part of them is extremely difficult because of the great depths. Nevertheless, without studying the World Ocean, its history, we will not be able to know either the past or the present of our planet. That is why various sciences are interested in a detailed study of the World Ocean. In its depths one can find answers to many unresolved questions of geology, geochemistry, geophysics, geography, climatology and biology.

The ocean is a source of rich mineral resources. They are divided into chemical elements dissolved in water, minerals contained under the seabed, both on the continental shelves and beyond; minerals on the bottom surface. More than 90% total cost mineral raw materials are provided by oil and gas.

The total oil and gas area within the shelf is estimated at 13 million square meters. km (about Ѕ of its area). The largest areas of oil and gas production from the seabed are the Persian and Mexican Gulfs. Commercial production of gas and oil has begun from the bottom of the North Sea. The shelf is also rich in surface deposits, represented by numerous placers at the bottom, containing metal ores, as well as non-metallic minerals. On vast areas of the ocean, rich deposits of iron-manganese nodules have been discovered - a kind of multicomponent ores containing also nickel, cobalt, copper, etc. At the same time, studies allow us to count on the discovery of large deposits of various metals in specific rocks lying under the ocean floor.

The aim of the work is to study the mineral resources of the World Ocean. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set:

1. Consider natural resources in the World Ocean.

2. Consider the main features of the bottom topography and sediments of the World Ocean.

3. To consider the deposits of mineral resources of the sea coasts.

The object of research is the World Ocean.

The subject of research is mineral resources.

When writing this work, I used the following methods:

Ш Source study;

Ш Analytical;

Ш Comparatively - geographical.

To write the work, the following sources were used:

Ш Literary;

Ш Cartographic;

Ш Internet sources.

SECTION 1. NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE WORLD OCEAN

The oceans throughout the history of mankind have played an important role in human life. The natural resources of the World Ocean are divided into four groups:

1. the resources contained in seawater;

2.biological,

3.mineral,

4. resources of thermal and mechanical energy.

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Fig. 1. Resources of the World Ocean.

Each cubic kilometer of seawater contains about 35 million tons of solids, including about 20 million tons of table salt, 10 million tons of magnesium, 31 thousand tons of bromine, 3 tons of uranium, 0.3 tons of silver, 0, 04 tons of gold. In total, more than 70 chemical elements are dissolved in seawater, i.e. 2/3 famous in the world. Most of all in water sodium, magnesium, chlorine and calcium. However, only 16 elements have a relatively high concentration and practical significance... Sea water is the only source of bromine production; in water it is 8 times more than in the earth's crust.

Sea water, using desalination technology, can be used to replenish fresh stocks.

Biological resources are widely represented in the ocean: 180 thousand species of animals and 20 thousand species of plants. Significant biomass of marine organisms - 36 billion tons. Its amount increases tenfold from the equator to the poles. This is because cold-water organisms are large in size and reproduce faster.

More than 85% of the biomass of the ocean, used by humans, comes from fish. The largest catches are in the Pacific Ocean and the Norwegian, Bering, Okhotsk and Japanese seas. Scientists believe that almost all seaweed can be eaten. Most of them are procured by China, Japan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But today the World Ocean provides mankind with only 2% of food products.

Since the use of biological resources of the sea in many countries exceeds their natural reproduction, in many countries a widespread activity is artificial breeding fish, shellfish (oysters, mussels), crustaceans and algae, which is called the mari culture. It is distributed in Japan, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, USA, the Netherlands and France.

The mineral resources of the World Ocean are divided into three groups. First of all, these are marine resources (natural gas, oil, coal, iron ore, tin). Half of the world's oil reserves are found in offshore fields, which are continuation of the mainland. The most famous offshore fields in the North Sea, Persian and Mexican Gulfs. The shelf of the Barents Sea and Sakhalin is promising. Already today, 1/3 of the oil is obtained from offshore fields. In addition, with the action of waves and currents, the coastal part of the seabed is destroyed, which is the source of coastal placers (placer deposits) containing diamonds, tin, gold, platinum, and amber. Mineral resources can be mined on the seabed - building materials, phosphorites, ferromanganese nodules. Ferromanganese nodules are 5-10 cm in diameter, their shape is predominantly round or flattened. They occur at depths of 100-7000 m. They are distributed in the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic oceans. In total, ore fields occupy 10% of the ocean floor area. The technologies for their extraction have already been developed, but they are not yet widely used. In the areas of the mid-oceanic ridges, in the places where hot springs emerge, significant reserves of ores of zinc, lead, copper and other metals are concentrated.

Significant resources of mechanical energy: hydro energy potential tides are greater than the potential of all the rivers of the Earth, and the energy of the waves is 90 times greater than the energy of the tides. Thermal energy arises from the temperature difference between surface and deep waters. This difference must be at least 20 C. Maximum values her in tropical latitudes. However, with the current level of development of science and technology, it is still economically unprofitable to use mechanical and thermal energy The world's oceans, excluding the energy of the ebb and flow. Tidal power plants have been built in France, USA, China and Russia.

The use of all types of resources of the World Ocean is accompanied by its pollution. A particular threat is posed by oil and oil product pollution as a result of waste dumping from ships, tanker accidents, and losses during loading and unloading. Every year they enter the ocean 5-10 million tons. The oil film formed on the surface of the ocean water slows down the process of biosynthesis, disrupts biological and energy ties. In addition, the pollution of the World Ocean is associated with the disposal of toxic and radioactive waste, testing of various types of weapons. Also, significant volumes of pollution come from river waters. More than 320 million tons of iron salts and 6.5 million tons of phosphorus get into the ocean every year. Almost a third of mineral fertilizers (30% potassium, 20% nitrogen, 2.5% phosphorus) are washed out by rainwater and carried by rivers to the seas and oceans. Sea water saturated with nitrates is a favorable environment for unicellular algae, which, forming huge layers (up to 2 m thick), impede the access of oxygen to the deep horizons. This leads to the death of fish and other organisms. A significant amount of ocean water pollution is associated with industrial and domestic waste. The problem of protecting ocean waters concerns all countries, even those that do not have direct access to the sea. Protection and rational use marine environment is an object of international cooperation.

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1 What type of marine energy is developing especially actively

1 What type of marine energy is developing especially actively

• 1. At present, all new types of coastal zone resources are being actively developed.
  2. The oceans are rich in natural resources. Seawater itself contains almost all the chemical elements, but many of them are in such low concentrations that the cost of extracting them is much higher than the cost of extracting the same elements on land.

  The mineral resources of the World Ocean are represented not only by sea water, but also by those under water. The bowels of the ocean, its bottom are rich in mineral deposits. On the continental shelf there are coastal alluvial deposits - gold, platinum; meet and gems- rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds. For example, near Namibia, underwater diamond gravel mining has been going on since 1962. On the shelf and partly the continental slope of the Ocean, there are large deposits of phosphorites, which can be used as fertilizers, and the reserves will be enough for the next several hundred years. The very same interesting view The mineral raw materials of the World Ocean are the famous ferromanganese nodules that cover vast underwater plains. Nodules are a kind of cocktail of metals: they include copper, cobalt, nickel, titanium, vanadium, but, of course, most of all iron and manganese. Their locations are well known, but the results of industrial development are still very modest. But the exploration and production of ocean oil and gas on the coastal shelf is in full swing, the share of offshore production is approaching 1/3 of the world's production of these energy carriers. The development of deposits in the Persian, Venezuelan, Mexican Gulfs, and the North Sea is going on on an especially large scale; oil platforms stretch off the coast of California, Indonesia, in the Mediterranean and Caspian seas. The Gulf of Mexico is also famous for the sulfur field discovered during oil exploration, which is melted from the bottom with the help of superheated water. Another, still untouched storeroom of the ocean, are deep crevices, where a new bottom is formed. So, for example, hot (over 60 degrees) and heavy brines of the Red Sea depression contain huge reserves of silver, tin, copper, iron and other metals.

  Mineral resources of the World Ocean

  Extraction of materials in shallow waters is becoming more and more important. Around Japan, for example, submarine iron-containing sands are sucked off through pipes, the country extracts

  Methods of extraction of coal, oil and gas from the seabed are widely used, where the thickness of the hard cover to the deposits is thinner than on the surface of the earth, and this makes it possible for a person to obtain minerals with cheaper means.

  The modern level of civilization and technology would be unthinkable without the cheap and abundant energy that oil and gas, extracted from the bottom of the seas and oceans, provide us with. At the same time, on the Caspian Sea, on the coast of the Arab Emirates and in many other places, the natural landscape has been practically destroyed, the coastline has been disfigured, the atmosphere has been polluted, and flora and fauna have been exterminated.

  Not only should the ocean give its wealth to people, but people should also use it economically and rationally. All this is feasible if, in the rate of development of marine production, the preservation and reproduction of biological resources of the oceans and seas and the rational use of their mineral resources are taken into account. With this approach, the World Ocean will help solve food, water and energy problems for humanity.

• (1 At present, more and more new types of coastal zone resources are being actively developed.) (2 The oceans have huge reserves of minerals. The sea water itself contains almost all chemical elements, but many of them are in high concentrations, so the cost of their extraction is much higher than the cost of extracting the same elements. on the land).

Introduction

Resources of the World Ocean

Development of the resources of the World Ocean

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The oceans have existed for over 4 billion years, of which 3 billion years in the seas and oceans are the production processes of photosynthesis. In the World Ocean, the salt composition is slightly changing, the water contains almost all the elements of the periodic table. According to calculations, the total mass of substances dissolved in the World Ocean is estimated at a huge figure - 50-60 trillion.

t. It is home to over 300 thousand species of animals and more than 100 thousand species of vegetation.

The relief of the World Ocean is very diverse: about 80% of its surface falls at depths of more than 3 thousand meters and only 8% - at depths corresponding to the continental shelf.

The area of ​​the World Ocean is 361 million km2, or almost 71% of the world's area. The oceans have enormous natural resources, no less significant than land.

The object of research is the resources of the World Ocean, the subject of research is the diversity of the main resources of the World Ocean.

The purpose of the work is to consider the resources of the World Ocean.

Tasks to be solved in the course of work:

to characterize the resources of the World Ocean;

consider the problem of developing the resources of the World Ocean.

Resources of the World Ocean

Mineral resources

The oceans, which occupy about 71% of the surface of our planet, are a huge storehouse of mineral wealth. Mineral resources within its limits are enclosed in two different environments - in fact, in the oceanic water mass, as the main part of the hydrosphere, and in the underlying earth's crust, as part of the lithosphere. According to the state of aggregation and, accordingly, the operating conditions, they are divided into:

) liquid, gaseous and dissolved, exploration and production of which is possible with the help of boreholes (oil, natural gas, salt, sulfur, etc.); 2) hard surface, the operation of which is possible with the help of dredges, hydraulic and other similar methods (metal-bearing placers and silts, nodules, etc.); 3) solid buried, the exploitation of which is possible by mine methods (coal, iron and some other ores).

The division of the mineral resources of the World Ocean into two large classes is also widely used: hydrochemical and geological resources. Hydrochemical resources include seawater itself, which can also be considered as a solution containing many chemical compounds and trace elements. The geological include those mineral resources that are in the surface layer and the bowels of the earth's crust.

The hydrochemical resources of the World Ocean are elements of the salt composition of ocean and sea waters that can be used for economic needs. According to modern estimates, such waters contain about 80 chemical elements. The oceanosphere contains the greatest amount of compounds of chlorine, sodium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, the concentration of which (in mg / l) is quite high; this group includes hydrogen and oxygen. All this creates the basis for the development of the "marine" chemical industry.

The geological resources of the World Ocean are the resources of mineral raw materials and fuels that are no longer contained in the hydrosphere, but in the lithosphere, that is, associated with the ocean floor. They can be subdivided into shelf, continental slope, and deep seafloor resources. The main role among them is played by the resources of the continental shelf, covering an area of ​​31.2 million km2, or 8.6% of the total ocean area.

The most famous and valuable mineral resource of the World Ocean is hydrocarbons: oil and natural gas. When characterizing the oil and gas resources of the World Ocean, usually, first of all, they mean the most accessible resources of its shelf. The largest oil and gas basins on the Atlantic Ocean shelf are explored off the coast of Europe (North Sea), Africa (Guinea), Central America (Caribbean), smaller ones - off the coast of Canada and the USA, Brazil, in the Mediterranean and some other seas. In the Pacific Ocean, such basins are known off the coasts of Asia, North and South America, and Australia. In the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf holds the leading place in reserves, but oil and gas have also been found on the shelf of India, Indonesia, Australia, and in the Arctic Ocean - off the coast of Alaska and Canada (the Beaufort Sea) and off the coast of Russia (the Barents and Kara Seas) ... The Caspian Sea should be added to this list.

In addition to oil and natural gas, solid mineral resources are associated with the shelf of the World Ocean. By the nature of their occurrence, they are subdivided into primary and alluvial.

The bedrock deposits of coal, iron, copper-nickel ores, tin, mercury, sodium chloride and potassium salts, sulfur and some other buried minerals are usually genetically associated with the deposits and basins of the adjacent parts of the land. They are known in many coastal regions of the World Ocean, and in some places they are developed with the help of mines and adits.

Coastal-marine placers of heavy metals and minerals should be sought in the border zone of land and sea - on beaches and lagoons, and sometimes in a strip of ancient beaches flooded by the ocean.

Of the metals contained in such placers, the most important is the tin ore - cassiterite, which occurs in the coastal-marine placers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Around the "tin islands" of this area, they can be traced at a distance of 10-15 km from the coast and to a depth of 35 m. Off the coast of Japan, Canada, New Zealand and some other countries, reserves of ferruginous (titanomagnetite and monazite) sands have been explored, off the coast of the USA and Canada - gold-bearing sands, off the coast of Australia - bauxite. Coastal-marine placers of heavy minerals are even more widespread. First of all, this applies to the coast of Australia (ilmenite, zircon, rutile, monazite), India and Sri Lanka (ilmenite, monazite, zircon), the USA (ilmenite, monazite), Brazil (monazite). Placer diamond deposits are known off the coast of Namibia and Angola.

Phosphorites occupy a somewhat special position in this list. Large deposits of them were found on the shelf of the western and eastern coasts of the United States, in the strip of the Atlantic coast of Africa, along the Pacific coast of South America.

Of the other solid mineral resources, the most interesting are the ferromanganese nodules, first discovered more than a hundred years ago by the British expeditionary vessel Challenger. Although nodules are called ferromanganese, since they contain 20% manganese and 15% iron, they also contain smaller amounts of nickel, cobalt, copper, titanium, molybdenum, rare earths and other valuable elements - more than 30 in total. Therefore, in fact, they are polymetallic ores ... The main accumulations of nodules are located in the Pacific Ocean, where they occupy an area of ​​16 million km2.

In addition to nodules, there are ferromanganese crusts on the ocean floor that cover rocks in the zones of mid-nooceanic ridges. These crusts are often located at depths of 1-3 km. Interestingly, they contain much more manganese than ferromanganese nodules. They also contain ores of zinc, copper, and cobalt.

Russia, which has a very long coastline, also owns the most extensive continental shelf in terms of area (6.2 million km2, or 20% of the world shelf, of which 4 million km2 are promising for oil and gas). Large reserves of oil and gas have already been discovered on the shelf of the Arctic Ocean - primarily in the Barents and Kara Seas, as well as in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (off the coast of Sakhalin). According to some estimates, 2/5 of all potential natural gas resources are associated with the seas in Russia. In the coastal zone, placer deposits and carbonate deposits are also known, which are used to obtain building materials.

Energetic resources

The World Ocean contains huge, truly inexhaustible resources of mechanical and thermal energy, moreover, constantly renewable. The main types of such energy are the energy of tides, waves, oceanic (sea) currents and temperature gradient.

The energy of the tides attracts especially attention. Tidal phenomena have been known to people since time immemorial and in the life of many coastal countries have played and play a very important role, to some extent determining the entire rhythm of their life.

It is common knowledge that ebb and flow occurs twice a day. In the open ocean, the amplitude between full and low water is about 1 m, but within the continental shelf, especially in bays and estuaries of rivers, it can be much larger. The total energy capacity of tides is usually estimated from 2.5 billion to 4 billion kW. We add that the energy of only one tidal cycle reaches about 8 trillion. kWh, which is only slightly less than the total world electricity generation for a whole year. Consequently, the energy of sea tides is an inexhaustible source of energy.

We also add such a distinctive feature of tidal energy as its constancy. The ocean, unlike rivers, does not know either high-water or low-water years. In addition, he "works on schedule" with an accuracy of several minutes. Due to this, the amount of electricity generated at tidal power plants (TPS) can always be known in advance - in contrast to conventional hydroelectric power plants, where the amount of energy received depends on the regime of the river, associated not only with the climatic features of the territory through which it flows, but also with the weather. conditions,

It is believed that the Atlantic Ocean has the largest reserves of tidal energy. In its northwestern part, on the border between the United States and Canada, lies the Bay of Fundy, which is the inner taper of the more open Gulf of Maine. This bay is famous for the highest tides in the world, reaching 18 m. The tides are also very high off the coast of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. For example, off the coast of Baffin Land, they rise by 15.6 m.In the northeastern part of the Atlantic, tides of up to 10 and even 13 m are observed in the English Channel off the coast of France, in the Bristol Bay and the Irish Sea off the coast of Great Britain and Ireland.

The reserves of tidal energy in the Pacific Ocean are also great. In its northwestern part, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk is especially prominent, where in the Penzhinskaya Bay (northeastern part of Shelikhov Bay) the height of the tidal wave is 9-13 m.On the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean, favorable conditions for the use of tidal energy are available off the coast of Canada and the Chilean archipelago in southern Chile, in the narrow and long Gulf of California, Mexico.

Within the Arctic Ocean, in terms of tidal energy reserves, the White Sea is distinguished, in the Mezen Bay of which the tides are up to 10 m high, and the Barents Sea off the coast of the Kola Peninsula (the tides are up to 7 m). In the Indian Ocean, the reserves of such energy are much less. Kach Bay of the Arabian Sea (India) and the northwestern coast of Australia are usually named here as promising for the construction of TPPs. However, in the deltas of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong and Irrawaddy, the tides are also 4-6 m.

The energy resources of the World Ocean also include the kinetic energy of waves. The total energy of wind waves is estimated at 2.7 billion kWh per year. Experiments have shown that it should be used not near the coast, where the waves arrive weakened, but in the open sea or in the coastal shelf zone. In some offshore areas, wave energy reaches a significant concentration; and the USA and Japan - about 40 kW per 1 m of the wavefront, and on the west coast of Great Britain - even 80 kW per 1 m.

Another energy resource of the World Ocean is oceanic (sea) currents, which have enormous energy potential. Thus, the discharge of the Gulf Stream even in the Florida Strait area is 25 million m3 / s, which is 20 times higher than the discharge of all rivers in the world. And after the Gulf Stream joins the Antilles current in the ocean, its discharge increases to 82 million m3 / s. Attempts have been made more than once to calculate the potential energy of this stream 75 km wide and 700 - 800 m thick, moving at a speed of 3 m / s.

When they talk about the use of a temperature gradient, they mean the source of not mechanical, but thermal energy, contained in the mass of ocean waters. Typically, the difference in water temperatures on the ocean surface and at a depth of 400 m is 12 ° C. However, in the waters of the tropics, the upper layers of water in the ocean can have a temperature of 25-28 ° C, and the lower, at a depth of 1000 m, only 5 ° C. It is in such cases, when the temperature amplitude reaches 20 ° and more, that it is considered economically justified to use it to generate electricity at hydrothermal (more thermal) power plants.

In general, the energy resources of the World Ocean would be more correct to refer to the resources of the future.

Biological resources

The biological resources of the World Ocean are characterized not only by very large sizes, but also by exceptional diversity. The waters of the seas and oceans, in essence, represent a densely populated world of many living organisms: from microscopic bacteria to the largest animals on Earth - whales. About 180 thousand species of animals, including 16 thousand different species of fish, 7.5 thousand species of crustaceans, about 50 thousand species of gastropods, live in vast ocean spaces, from the surface illuminated by the Sun to the dark and cold kingdom of the deep sea. ... There are also 10 thousand plant species in the oceans.

Based on the lifestyle and habitat, all organisms living in the oceans are usually divided into three classes.

The first class, which has the highest biomass and the greatest diversity of species, includes plankton, which, in turn, is subdivided into phytoplankton and zooplankton. Plankton is distributed mainly in the surface horizons of the oceanic stratum (up to a depth of 100-150 m), and phytoplankton - mainly the smallest unicellular algae - serves as food for many species of zooplankton, which in terms of biomass (20-25 billion tons) occupies the first a place.

The second class of marine organisms includes nekton. It includes all animals that can move independently in the water column of the seas and oceans. These are fish, whales, dolphins, walruses, seals, squids, shrimps, octopuses, turtles and some other species. The approximate estimate of the total biomass of nekton is 1 billion tons, half of which falls on fish.

The third class unites marine organisms that live on the ocean floor or in bottom sediments - benthos. Various species of bivalve molluscs (mussels, oysters, etc.), crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, lobsters), echinoderms (sea urchins) and other benthic animals can be named as representatives of zoobenthos; phytobenthos is represented primarily by various algae. In terms of biomass, zoobenthos (10 billion tons) is second only to zooplankton.

The geographical distribution of the biological resources of the World Ocean is extremely uneven. Within its limits, very highly productive, highly productive, medium productive, unproductive and the most unproductive areas are quite clearly distinguished. Naturally, the first two of them are of the greatest economic interest. Productive areas in the oceans can have the nature of latitudinal belts, which is largely due to the unequal distribution of solar energy. So, the following natural fishing belts are usually distinguished: arctic and antarctic, temperate belts of the northern and southern hemispheres, tropical-equatorial belt. The most economically important of them is the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere.

For a more complete characterization of the geographical distribution of biological resources, their distribution between the separate oceans of the Earth is of great interest.

The first place in terms of both the total volume of biomass and the number of species is occupied by the Pacific Ocean. Its fauna is three to four times richer in species composition than other oceans. In fact, all types of living organisms inhabiting the World Ocean are represented here. The Pacific Ocean also differs from others in its high biological productivity, especially in the temperate and equatorial zones. But the biological productivity is even greater in the shelf zone: it is here that the vast majority of those marine animals that serve as objects of fishing live and spawn.

The biological resources of the Atlantic Ocean are also very rich and diverse. It stands out for its high average biological productivity. Animals inhabit the entire thickness of its waters. Large marine mammals (whales, pinnipeds), herring, cod and other fish species, crustaceans live in temperate and cold waters. In the tropical part of the ocean, the number of species is no longer measured in thousands, but in tens of thousands. Various organisms also live in its deep-sea horizons under conditions of tremendous pressure, low temperatures and eternal darkness.

The Indian Ocean also possesses significant biological resources, but they are less studied here and are used less so far. As for the Arctic Ocean, the predominant part of the cold and icy waters of the Arctic is unfavorable for the development of life and therefore is not very productive. Only in the Atlantic part of this ocean, in the zone of influence of the Gulf Stream, its biological productivity increases significantly.

Russia possesses very large and varied marine biological resources. First of all, this applies to the seas of the Far East, and the greatest diversity (800 species) is noted off the coast of the southern Kuril Islands, where cold-loving and thermophilic forms coexist. Of the seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea is the richest in biological resources.

Development of the resources of the World Ocean

Along with the problem of water resources, the problem of the development of the resources of the World Ocean arises as the largest independent complex problem.

The ocean occupies more of the Earth's surface (71%) than land. It caused the emergence and evolution of many forms of life: 75% of the classes and subclasses of animal organisms on the Earth originated in the hydrosphere. The biomass of the ocean includes 150 thousand species and subspecies of living organisms. And at present, the oceans play a huge role in creating necessary conditions for life on earth. It supplies half of the oxygen in the air and approximately 20% of the protein food for mankind.

It is believed that it is the World Ocean that will "quench the thirst" of mankind in the future. Methods of desalination of seawater are still complex and expensive, but such water is already being used in Kuwait, Algeria, Libya, Bermuda and Bahamas, and in some parts of the United States. On the Mangyshlak peninsula (Kazakhstan), there is also a seawater desalination plant.

In addition, it is increasingly possible to use another source of ocean freshwater: towing to scarce countries giant icebergs breaking away from the northern and southern "ice caps" of the Earth.

Further research and development of the World Ocean can influence the prospects for solving other global problems. Let's list some of them.

The most important part of the resources of the oceans are biological. Scientists believe that these resources will be enough to feed 30 billion people.

The oceans are a repository of vast mineral resources. Every year the real process of exploiting these resources is developing more and more actively. 1/4 of the world's oil, 12% of cassiterite (off the coast of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand), diamonds from the coastal sands of South Africa and Namibia, many millions of tons of phosphorite nodules for fertilizers are extracted from the bottom of the seas. In 1999, to the east of New Guinea, a major project was launched to extract the richest complex ores of iron, zinc, copper, gold and silver from the ocean floor. The energy potential of the ocean is enormous (one tidal cycle of the World Ocean is able to provide humanity with energy, but so far this is the “potential of the future”).

For the development of world production and exchange, there is a great transport value Of the World Ocean. The ocean is home to most of the waste economic activity mankind (by the chemical and physical impact of its waters and the biological influence of living organisms, the ocean scatters and purifies the bulk of the waste entering it. However, the excess of self-cleaning capabilities of the ocean by mankind is fraught with very serious consequences).

The development of the resources of the World Ocean and its protection are undoubtedly one of the global problems of mankind.

Conclusion

world ocean phytoplankton resource

Most of the Earth's surface is occupied by the ocean. The oceans play a huge role in creating the necessary conditions for life on Earth. It is a supplier of oxygen to the atmosphere and protein food for mankind,

It is believed that it is the World Ocean that will quench the "thirst" of mankind. Methods of desalination of sea oxen are still complex and expensive, but Kuwait, Algeria, Libya, Bermuda and Bahamas, and parts of the United States are already using such a floor. In Kazakhstan, on the Mangyshlak peninsula, a seawater desalination unit is also operating.

The ever-expanding knowledge of the ocean's resource potential shows that it can, in many ways, replenish the dwindling mineral reserves on land. Further research and economic development of the World Ocean can influence the prospects for solving a number of global problems.

The most important part of the resources of the World Ocean is biological (fish, zoo- and phytoplankton). The oceans are a repository of vast mineral resources. The energy potential of the ocean is also great (only one tidal cycle is able to provide humanity with energy - but for now this is the “potential of the future”). For the development of the world economy and international exchange, the transport value of the World Ocean is very great. Finally, the ocean is the main reservoir of the most valuable and increasingly scarce resource - fresh water (after desalination of seawater),

The resources of the oceans are enormous, but their problems are also great.

Mineral resources of the oceans

In the XX century. influence human activity on the World Ocean has taken on a catastrophic scale: the ocean is polluted with crude oil and oil products, heavy metals and other highly and medium toxic substances, ordinary garbage. The World Ocean receives several billion tons of liquid and solid waste annually, including those with river runoff into the seas. By the chemical and physical effects of its waters and the biological influence of living organisms, the ocean scatters and purifies the bulk of the waste entering it. However, the ocean is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the increasing volume of waste and pollution. The development of ocean resources and its protection is one of the global problems of mankind.

List of used literature

1.Alisov N.V. Economic and social geography the world ( general review). - M .: Gardariki, 2000.

2.Butov V.I. Economic and social geography foreign world and Russian Federation... - 2nd ed., Rev. and add. - М: ICC "Mart"; Rostov n / a: Publishing Center "Mart", 2006.

Maksakovsky V.P. Geographical picture of the world: In 2 vols. Book 1: general characteristics the world. - M .: Bustard, 2003.

Rodionova I.A. Economical geography. - 7th ed. - M .: Moscow Lyceum, 2004.

Socio-economic geography of the foreign world / Ed. V.V. Volsky. - 2nd ed., Rev. - M .: Bustard, 2003.

Tags: Resources of the World Ocean Abstract Geography, economic geography

Education

Characteristics and resources of the Sea of ​​Japan

The water area of ​​the Sea of ​​Japan belongs to the Pacific Ocean, or rather, to its western part. Located near Sakhalin Island, between Asia and Japan. Washes South and North Korea, Japan and the Russian Federation.

Although the reservoir belongs to the ocean basin, it is well insulated from it. This affects both the salinity of the Sea of ​​Japan and its fauna. The overall water balance is regulated by outflows and inflows through straits. It practically does not participate in water exchange (small contribution: 1%).

It is connected with other reservoirs and the Pacific Ocean by 4 straits (Tsushima, Soyu, Mamaiya, Tsugaru). The surface area is about 1062 km2. The average depth of the Sea of ​​Japan is 1753 m, the greatest is 3742 m. It is difficult to freeze, only its Northern part covered with ice in winter.

Hydronym is generally accepted, but disputed by the Korean powers. They argue that the name is literally imposed on the world by the Japanese side. V South Korea it is called the East Sea, and the North uses the name Korea East Sea.

The problems of the Sea of ​​Japan are directly related to the environment. They could be called typical, if not for the fact that the reservoir is washed by several states at once. They have different policies for the protection of sea waters, so the influence of people also varies. Among the main problems are the following:

• industrial mining;
• release of radioactive substances and oil products;
• oil spills.

Climatic conditions

The climate is maritime, therefore warm water and monsoons are frequent in this sea. The southeast is characterized by frequent precipitation, in the northwest they minimal amount... Typhoons are often observed in the autumn season. Waves sometimes reach 10 meters. The Tatar Strait freezes by 90%. As a rule, ice lasts about 3-4 months.

The temperature of the Sea of ​​Japan fluctuates by several tens of degrees, depending on the area. North and west are characterized by -20оС, east and south - + 5оС.

Resources of the World Ocean

August has been considered a warm month for several years. At this time of the year, in the north, the temperature reaches + 15 ° C, in the south - + 25 ° C.

Salinity of the Sea of ​​Japan and its glaciers

Salinity ranges from 33 to 34 ppm, which is several times lower than in the waters of the World Ocean.

According to glaciation, the Sea of ​​Japan is divided into three parts:

• Tatarsky is against;
• Peter the Great Bay;
• the area from Povorotny Cape to Belkin.

As already described above, ice is always localized in part of this strait and bay. In other places, it practically does not form (if we do not take into account the bays and northwestern waters).

An interesting fact is that initially ice appears in places where there is fresh water from the Sea of ​​Japan, and only then it spreads to other parts of the reservoir.

Glaciation in the Tatar Strait lasts about 80 days in the south, and 170 days in the north; in the Gulf of Peter the Great - 120 days.

If winter is no different severe frosts then areas are covered with ice in early to late November; if the temperature drops to critical levels, then freezing occurs earlier.

By February, the formation of the cover stops. At this moment, the Tatar Strait is covered by about 50%, and the Peter the Great Bay - by 55%.

Thawing often begins in March. The depth of the Sea of ​​Japan facilitates the rapid ice-removal process. It can start at the end of April. If the temperature is kept low, then thawing begins in early June. First, parts of the Gulf of Peter the Great “open”, in particular, its open water areas, and the coast of the Golden Cape. While ice begins to recede in the Tatar Strait, it thaws in its eastern part.

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Resources of the Sea of ​​Japan

Human biological resources are used to the maximum extent. Fishing is developed near the shelf. Herring, tuna and sardine are considered valuable fish species. In the central regions, squid is caught, in the north and southwest - salmon. Algae from the Sea of ​​Japan also play an important role.

Flora and fauna

Biological resources of the Sea of ​​Japan in different parts have their characteristics... Due to the climatic conditions in the north and northwest, nature has moderate characteristics, in the south the faunal complex prevails. Near the Far East there are plants and animals inherent in warm-water and temperate climates. Here you can see squid and octopus. In addition to them, there are brown algae, sea urchins, stars, shrimps and crabs. Yet the resources of the Sea of ​​Japan squeak from diversity. There are few places where you can find red ascidians. Scallops, ruffs and dogs are common.

Sea problems

The main problem is the consumption of sea resources due to the constant fishing of fish and crabs, algae, scallops, sea ​​urchins... Poaching is flourishing along with the state fleets. The abuse of fish and shellfish prey leads to the constant extinction of any species of marine animals.

In addition, careless fishing can lead to the death of people. Due to fuel and lubricating waste, sewage and oil products, the fish dies, mutates or becomes polluted, which carries great danger for consumers.

Several years ago, this problem was overcome thanks to coherent actions and agreements between the Russian Federation and Japan.

The ports of companies, enterprises and settlements are the main source of pollution with waters containing chlorine, oil, mercury, nitrogen and other hazardous substances. Due to the high concentration of these substances, blue-green algae develop. Because of them, there is a danger of contamination with hydrogen sulfide.

Tides

Difficult tides are typical for the Sea of ​​Japan. Their cyclical nature differs significantly in different regions. Semi-diurnal occurs near the Korean Strait and near the Tatarsky Strait. Daytime tides are inherent in the territories adjacent to the coast of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Korea and the DPRK, as well as near Hokkaido and Honshu (Japan). Near Peter the Great Bay, the tides are mixed.

The tide level is low: from 1 to 3 meters. In some areas, the amplitude varies from 2.2 to 2.7 m.

Seasonal fluctuations are also not uncommon. They are seen most often in the summer; in winter there are fewer of them. The nature of the wind and its strength also affect the water level. Why the resources of the Sea of ​​Japan depend heavily.

Transparency

Throughout the sea, water different color: Blue to blue with a green tint.

As a rule, transparency is maintained at a depth of 10 m. There is a lot of oxygen in the waters of the Sea of ​​Japan, which contributes to the development of resources. Phytoplankton is more common in the north and west of the reservoir. On the surface of the water, the oxygen concentration reaches almost 95%, but this figure gradually decreases with depth, and already by 3 thousand meters is equal to 70%.

14. Mineral resources of the World Ocean

The oceans, which occupy about 71% of the surface of our planet, are also a huge storehouse of mineral wealth. Mineral resources within its limits are contained in two different environments - actually in the oceanic water mass, as the main part of the hydrosphere, and in the underlying earth's crust, as part of the lithosphere. According to the state of aggregation and, accordingly, the operating conditions, they are divided into: 1) liquid, gaseous and dissolved, exploration and production of which is possible with the help of boreholes (oil, natural gas, salt, sulfur, etc.); 2) hard surface, the operation of which is possible with the help of dredges, hydraulic and other similar methods (metal-bearing placers and silts, nodules, etc.); 3) solid buried, the exploitation of which is possible by mine methods (coal, iron and some other ores).

The division of the mineral resources of the World Ocean into two large classes is also widely used: hydrochemical and geological resources. Hydrochemical resources include seawater itself, which can also be considered as a solution containing many chemical compounds and trace elements. The geological include those mineral resources that are in the surface layer and the bowels of the earth's crust.

The hydrochemical resources of the World Ocean are elements of the salt composition of ocean and sea waters that can be used for economic needs. According to modern estimates, such waters contain about 80 chemical elements, the diversity of which is shown in Figure 10. The oceanosphere contains the largest amount of compounds of chlorine, sodium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, the concentration of which (in mg / l) is quite high; this group includes hydrogen and oxygen. The concentration of most other chemical elements is much lower, and sometimes scanty (for example, the content of silver is 0.0003 mg / l, tin is 0.0008, gold is 0.00001, lead is 0.00003, and tantalum is 0.000003 mg / l), therefore seawater is called "lean ore". However, with its overall huge volume, the total amount of some hydrochemical resources may turn out to be quite significant.

It is estimated that 1 km 3 of seawater contains 35–37 million tons of dissolved substances. Including about 20 million tons of chlorine compounds, 9.5 million tons of magnesium, 6.2 million tons of sulfur, as well as about 30 thousand tons of bromine, 4 thousand tons of aluminum, 3 thousand tons of copper. Another 80 tons are manganese, 0.3 tons - silver and 0.04 tons - gold. In addition, 1 km 3 of sea water contains a lot of oxygen and hydrogen, there is also carbon and nitrogen.

All this creates the basis for the development of the "marine" chemical industry.

The geological resources of the World Ocean are the resources of mineral raw materials and fuels that are no longer contained in the hydrosphere, but in the lithosphere, that is, associated with the ocean floor. They can be subdivided into shelf, continental slope, and deep seafloor resources. The main role among them is played by the resources of the continental shelf, covering an area of ​​31.2 million km 2, or 8.6% of the total ocean area.

Rice. ten. Hydrochemical resources of the oceanosphere (according to R.A. Kryzhanovsky)

The most famous and valuable mineral resource of the World Ocean is hydrocarbons: oil and natural gas. Even according to data at the end of the 80s. XX century, 330 sedimentary basins, promising for oil and gas, were explored in the World Ocean. In about 100 of them, about 2,000 fields were discovered. Most of these basins are continuation of land basins and are folded geosynclinal structures, but there are also purely marine sedimentary oil and gas basins that do not go beyond their water areas. By some estimates, total area of such basins within the World Ocean reaches 60–80 million km 2. As for their reserves, they are estimated differently in different sources: for oil - from 80 billion to 120-150 billion tons, and for gas - from 40-50 trillion cubic meters to 150 trillion cubic meters. Approximately 2/3 of these reserves belong to the Atlantic Ocean.

When characterizing the oil and gas resources of the World Ocean, they usually primarily mean the most accessible resources of its shelf. The largest oil and gas basins on the Atlantic Ocean shelf are explored off the coast of Europe (North Sea), Africa (Guinea), Central America (Caribbean), smaller ones - off the coast of Canada and the USA, Brazil, in the Mediterranean and some other seas. In the Pacific Ocean, such basins are known off the coasts of Asia, North and South America, and Australia. In the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf holds the leading place in reserves, but oil and gas have also been found on the shelf of India, Indonesia, Australia, and in the Arctic Ocean - off the coast of Alaska and Canada (the Beaufort Sea) and off the coast of Russia (the Barents and Kara Seas) ... The Caspian Sea should be added to this list.

However, the continental shelf accounts for only about 1/3 of the predicted oil and gas resources in the World Ocean. The rest of them belong to the sedimentary strata of the continental slope and deep-water basins located at a distance of many hundreds and even thousands of kilometers from the coast. The depth of occurrence of oil and gas reservoirs is much greater here. It reaches 500-1000 m and more. Scientists have established that the greatest prospects for oil and gas have deep-sea basins located: in the Atlantic Ocean - in the Caribbean Sea and off the coast of Argentina; in the Pacific Ocean - in the Bering Sea; in the Indian Ocean - off the coast

East Africa and the Bay of Bengal; in the Arctic Ocean - off the coast of Alaska and Canada, as well as off the coast of Antarctica.

In addition to oil and natural gas, solid mineral resources are associated with the shelf of the World Ocean. By the nature of their occurrence, they are subdivided into indigenous and placer.

The bedrock deposits of coal, iron, copper-nickel ores, tin, mercury, sodium chloride and potassium salts, sulfur and some other buried minerals are usually genetically associated with the deposits and basins of the adjacent parts of the land. They are known in many coastal regions of the World Ocean, and in some places they are developed with the help of mines and adits. (fig. 11).

Coastal-marine placers of heavy metals and minerals should be sought in the border zone of land and sea - on beaches and lagoons, and sometimes in a strip of ancient beaches flooded by the ocean.

Of the metals contained in such placers, the most important is the tin ore - cassiterite, which occurs in the coastal-marine placers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Around the "tin islands" of this area, they can be traced at a distance of 10-15 km from the coast and to a depth of 35 m. Off the coast of Japan, Canada, New Zealand and some other countries, reserves of ferruginous (titanomagnetite and monazite) sands have been explored, off the coast of the USA and Canada - gold-bearing sands, off the coast of Australia - bauxite. Coastal-marine placers of heavy minerals are even more widespread. First of all, this applies to the coast of Australia (ilmenite, zircon, rutile, monazite), India and Sri Lanka (ilmenite, monazite, zircon), the USA (ilmenite, monazite), Brazil (monazite). Placer diamond deposits are known off the coast of Namibia and Angola.

Phosphorites occupy a somewhat special position in this list. Large deposits of them were found on the shelf of the western and eastern coasts of the United States, in the strip of the Atlantic coast of Africa, along the Pacific coast of South America. However, even Soviet oceanographic expeditions in the 60s – 70s. XX century. phosphorites were explored not only on the shelf, but also within the continental slope and volcanic uplifts in the central parts of the oceans.

Of the other solid mineral resources, the most interesting are ferromanganese nodules, first discovered more than a hundred years ago by the British expeditionary vessel Challenger. Since then, they have been explored by oceanographic expeditions from many countries, including Soviet ones - on the ships Vityaz>, Akademik Kurchatov), ​​Dmitry Mendeleev, etc. It was found that such nodules are found at depths from 100 to 7000 m , i.e., in the shelf seas, for example, the Kara, Barents, and within the deep-sea floor of the ocean and its depressions. At great depths, the deposits of nodules are much larger, so that these peculiar brown "potatoes" ranging in size from 2–5 to 10 cm form an almost continuous "pavement". Although nodules are called ferromanganese, since they contain 20% manganese and 15% iron, they also contain in smaller amounts nickel, cobalt, copper, titanium, molybdenum, rare earths and other valuable elements - more than 30 in total. Therefore, in fact, they are polymetallic ores ...

Rice. eleven. Mineral resources of the bottom of the World Ocean (according to V.D. and M.V. Voiloshnikov)

The total reserves of nodules in the World Ocean are estimated with a very large “fork”: from 2-3 trillion to 20 trillion tons, and the recoverable ones are usually up to 0.5 billion tons. It should also be taken into account that they grow by 10 million tons annually.

The main accumulations of nodules are located in the Pacific Ocean, where they occupy an area of ​​16 million km 2. It is customary to distinguish three main zones (hollows) there - northern, middle and southern. In some areas of these basins, the density of nodules reaches 70 kg per 1 m 2 (with an average of about 10 kg). In the Indian Ocean, nodules have also been explored in several deep-water basins, mainly in its central part, but their deposits in this ocean are much less than in the Pacific, and the quality is worse. There are even fewer nodules in the Atlantic Ocean, where their more or less extensive fields are in the northwest, in the North American Basin, and off the coast South Africa (rice. 77).

In addition to nodules, the ocean floor contains ferromanganese crusts that cover rocks in the zones of the mid-ocean ridges. These crusts are often located at depths of 1–3 km. Interestingly, they contain much more manganese than ferromanganese nodules. They also contain ores of zinc, copper, and cobalt.

Russia, which has a very long coastline, also owns the most extensive continental shelf in terms of area (6.2 million km 2, or 20% of the world shelf, of which 4 million km 2 are promising for oil and gas). Large reserves of oil and gas have already been discovered on the shelf of the Arctic Ocean - primarily in the Barents and Kara Seas, as well as in the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (off the coast of Sakhalin). According to some estimates, 2/5 of all potential natural gas resources are associated with the seas in Russia. In the coastal zone, placer deposits and carbonate deposits are also known, which are used to obtain building materials.

The treasures of sunken ships can also be considered as a kind of "resources" of the bottom of the World Ocean: according to the estimates of American oceanographers, at least 1 million of such ships lie at the bottom! Yes, and now they die annually from 300 to 400.

Most of the underwater treasures are located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, through the expanses of which, in the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries, gold and silver were exported to Europe in large quantities. Dozens of ships were killed by hurricanes and storms. V recent times with the help of the most modern technology, the remains of Spanish galleons were found at the bottom of the ocean. Huge values ​​were lifted from them.

In 1985, the American search team discovered the famous "Titanic" that sank in 1912, in the safes of which billions of dollars worth of valuables were buried, including 26 thousand silver plates and trays, but it was not yet possible to lift them from a depth of more than 4 km.

One more example. During the Second World War, 465 gold bars (5.5 tons) were sent from Murmansk to England on the Edinburgh cruiser to pay for military supplies of the Allies. In the Barents Sea, the cruiser was attacked by a German submarine and damaged. It was decided to flood it so that the gold would not fall into the hands of the enemy. After 40 years, the divers descended to a depth of 260 m, where the ship sank, and all the gold bars were recovered and raised to the surface.

The world's oceans are all the oceans of the planet, seas, straits and bays that unite and separate them. According to all researchers, it is a huge storehouse of natural resources, the most different resources, exhaustible and inexhaustible, renewable and non-renewable.

Types of natural resources of the World Ocean

Allocate such basic natural resources as:

• water resources;
• energetic resources;
• mineral resources;
• biological resources;
• recreational resources.

In the XX century, scientists also began to allocate such resources of the world's oceans as:

• land;
• climatic;
• geothermal.

Rice. 1. Biological resources of the World Ocean

Sea water is an independent resource of the World Ocean

Sea water is an independent resource and wealth of the World Ocean. It makes up 96.5% of the entire hydrosphere of the planet. For every inhabitant of the Earth there are 270 million cubic meters. km. This is very large stock especially since desalination is not a problem now.

In addition, seawater contains a large number of chemical elements:

• table salt;
• magnesium;
• potassium;
• iodine;
• bromine;
• uranium;
• gold.

The water resources of the oceans belong to an exhaustible renewable type of natural resources.

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Rice. 2. Sea water is a resource of the World Ocean

To give brief description all other resources of the World Ocean can be used with the help of a table, which, in turn, can be used both in geography lessons in grade 10, and in preparation for the Unified State Exam in the subject.

Table (classification scheme) "Natural resources of the world ocean"

Natural resource type	Resource type	a brief description of	Geography of resources of the World Ocean
Exhaustible renewable	Biological	The biological resources of the World Ocean include all types of fish, marine animals and plants that live and grow in it.	Throughout the World Ocean, but the most productive are: Bering Sea; The Norwegian Sea; Sea of ​​Okhotsk; Japanese Sea.
	Land	The use of underwater areas for farming.	The entire territory of the World Ocean
Exhaustible non-renewable	Mineral	The mineral resources of the World Ocean include various minerals: oil reserves; gas reserves; deposits of diamonds, gold, platinum; deposits of tin and titanium ores; iron deposits; phosphorus deposits; non-metallic raw materials; drinking water reserves on the shelf of the World Ocean.	The main oil and gas fields are concentrated in the North Sea, Barents Sea, Caspian Sea, Gulf of Mexico
Inexhaustible	Energy resources of the World Ocean	First of all, we are talking about energy: sea ​​and ocean currents; the energy of the ebb and flow; wind energy in oceans and seas; wave energy.	The Atlantic and Pacific oceans, as well as the Barents Sea, White and Okhotsk Sea.
	Climatic	Energy of sun. The oceans shape the planet's climate, ensuring agricultural productivity
	Geothermal	Geothermal resources can be conditionally classified as energy resources, since we are talking about the thermoenergetic potential of water masses, due to the temperature difference between the shallows and in depth.

Rice. 3. Energy resources of the World Ocean

The problem of using the resources of the World Ocean

Countries leading the world back in the 70s of the XX century realized that the oceans require special treatment. Irrational and inefficient use of its resources can lead to serious global problems. That is why the rules were developed to regulate

• fishing in the waters of the World Ocean;
• extraction of minerals, including oil and gas;
• use of energy resources.

Rice. 4. Oil production in the sea

Pollution of the World Ocean is regulated and controlled by various international treaties and conventions. Work is underway to ensure the safety of oil and gas production, and to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants.

Pollution of the waters of the World Ocean can lead to a decrease in its resource capacity. For example, the pollution of the Baltic Sea led to the destruction of all biological life in one fourth of its water area.

What have we learned?

The world's oceans are a storehouse of a wide variety of natural resources. Unfortunately, some of them are exhaustible and non-renewable. That is why it is necessary to find ways of their rational use.

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