The Biological Carbon Pump. This illustration shows how carbon moves from the upper ocean to the deep ocean.

Estuary environment and biological communities

Sea otters control sea urchin populations, keeping them from overgrazing the kelp.

How do coral reef atolls form?

Diel vertical migration. Two versions of this one. Background in oil paint, creatures in marker, put together and annotated in Illustrator.

Most of the ocean is the deep ocean.

Oxygen minimum zones. Map shows GLODAPv2 oxygen data, visualized using GMT4 software. Will make edits to diagram on right to more clearly show that fish are avoiding the OMZ, rather than causing it.

Food resources for the deep sea. This illustration depicts the variety of mechanisms by which the deep sea organisms acquire organic carbon resources.

The Martin curve. First characterized by John Martin and colleagues in 1987, the Martin curve describes the diminishing flux of particulate organic matter with ocean depth. Most organic carbon is remineralized in the upper ocean with only a small fraction making it to the deep ocean to be buried at the seafloor.

These maps show the world's Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), which are coastal regions where 90% of living marine resources are harvested. The topography background dataset is ETOPO. Two options for this figure.

Threats to deep sea ecosystems include anthropogenic climate change impacts like warming, ocean acidification, and decreasing oxygen, as well as deep sea mining, nuclear waste, trash, deep sea fishing, and oil & gas operations.