Fun Facts

• The ocean covers 71% of the earth's surface
• 89% of the Southern Hemisphere is covered by ocean
• The ocean's average depth is 4,000m
• The ocean's maximum depth is 11,000m (in the Marianas Trench)
• Sunlight does not penetrate beyond 1000m
• The temperature of the ocean below 1000m is typically less than 4 degrees Celsius
• Pregnancy in sharks and rays is typically 9-12 months (some up to 22months)
• Female sharks can clone themselves when they are without males - a phenomenon known as Parthenogenesis
• Sharks can lose up to 30,000 teeth in a lifetime!
• Australia has 21% of the world's shark attacks, but there is no evidence that shark attacks per person are increasing. We just have more humans going in the ocean. You are more likely to get struck by lighting or die from a coconut falling on your head than you are of a shark attack.
• 93% of all shark attacks on humans are towards men rather than women. Girl Power.
• Sharks have lived on the planet for more than 400 million years whereas humans have been on the planet for just 200,000 years. In the last 15 years humans have been responsible for wiping out 98% of the entire shark population.
• Up to 270million sharks are killed by humans per year resulting in serious concerns for whether sharks are facing extinction at the hands of people
• 75% of consumers of shark are unaware that they are eating shark.
• 19% of consumers of shark fin soup incorrectly think shark fins grew back.
  

A Short History of Marine Biology

• 350 BC Aristotle - the first writings about marine biology. Aristotle starts to describes the anatomy of marine animals (e.g. spotting the differences between breeding in sharks and differences between whale teeth)
• 1750 Linnaeus - classification system created to aid in the identification of species (still used today)
• 1800 Curvier - a major scheme was described to classify all animals into Articulata, Radiata, Vertebrata, Mollusca etc.
• 1840 Forbes - Ecology science starts in marine biology. Dredging was used to collect sea animals and Forbes started to describe how life would not survive beyond a certain depth (Azoic theory).
• 1850 Sars - the Azoic theory was disproved which sparked an interest in deep sea biology.
• 1880 Darwin - coral reefs were studied and Darwin proposed a theory that coral reefs developed around emergent volcanic rock that was sinking so the coral was continuing to grow up towards sunlight.
• 1863 England Fisheries Research - first research department focussed on marine life.
• 1869 Carpenter & Thomson - a major expedition was endeavoured which found crinoids both in the fossil bed and in the living ocean
• 1900 University - It was around the end of the 19th century that marine stations were opening up around the globe and Marine Biology became a subject in university.
• 1934 BEEBE - the first deep dive in a metal sphere was made and reached 923m. This was a big step since it was the first time so far in history to perform research without dredging the ocean 
• 1970s submarine expeditions - Submarines able to video and perform experiments at 2000m depth or more were first used
• 1980s studies from space - Satellites in space were used to monitor images of the ocean and estimate depth, temperature, chlorophyll and other characteristics.

Habitats of Marine Organisms:
In Sydney we get great examples of all types of habitats that marine organisms live. Here is a diagram to help illustrate the habitats of the creatures we see in Sydney.

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