(ORDO NEWS) — The picture, in which different oceans meet each other, but do not mix their waters, can be admired forever, because it looks very beautiful.
The waters are painted in different colors, and the currents are in different directions, so the waves seem to go towards each other.
The viewer involuntarily has the feeling that an invisible barrier has been installed in front of the water from the very bottom. Although the two oceans merge, each of them exists on its own and retains its own identity.
Such a picturesque phenomenon can be observed in the place where the Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic. There seems to be an invisible wall between them.
To explain the phenomenon is quite simple: it arises due to the difference in the chemical and biological indicators of the waters of the two oceans. The border between them is the so-called. “wedge” – is formed due to different compositions of ocean water.
So, its density is very different. As we remember from school days, liquids with different densities cannot mix. Also, the waters of the two oceans have different salinity, biological diversity and temperature regime.
A halocline is a boundary that occurs between more and less saline bodies of water. Mixing is also prevented by the surface tension of water, that is, the force due to which the molecules are connected to each other. The greater this indicator, the lower the penetrating power of the two liquid media.
There are very few places like this around the world. You can observe a halocline, for example, in Skagen (Denmark), where the North Sea carries its dark waters towards the turquoise waves of the Baltic. It is also worth admiring the spectacular watershed in Gibraltar, as well as where the White Sea meets the Barents Sea.
The similarity between these geographical objects lies in the fact that when the waters merge, a clear, visible to the eye, watershed boundary is formed. Such an amazing phenomenon attracts the attention of more than just scientists – a huge mass of travelers are curious to look at it.
Inquisitive minds come to such places to see “vanishing points” and haloclines with their own eyes. Increased interest in the phenomenon stimulates the study of the underwater world, its physical and chemical properties and numerous mysteries that have not been solved so far.
Although the ocean space, strictly demarcated due to its characteristics, provides great food for thought and wide space for scientific research, it is also incredibly beautiful.
This is a true tourist attraction, to which a lot of people flock. The phenomenon is all the more breathtaking in its spectacularity, as a sharp color contrast arises at the border of the meeting of the waters of the two oceans.
Thus, the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans do not merge with each other due to the halocline. When a “point of convergence” is formed, this means that the waters of the two environments differ sharply in their mineral and salt composition, have different densities, underwater fauna, and other physical and chemical differences.
It is for this reason that we have the opportunity to observe beautiful and extremely unusual natural objects in several places on our planet, which tirelessly excite the minds of not only scientists of all stripes, but also ordinary people.
An interesting fact: in 1962, the famous French explorer of the World Ocean, Jacques Yves Cousteau, first saw a halocline with his own eyes.
This natural phenomenon shocked him with its grandeur, but the scientist was even more surprised that the phenomenon was described in the Koran 1,400 years ago. This gave rise to rumors that the explorer of the ocean depths even converted to Islam.
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