Monimolimnion

Monimolimnion!

Is that a cool word or what?

Wow! It just makes your lips and tongue vibrate!

mon-ee-mo-LIM-nee-ohn

one-two-three-FOUR-five-six

This special word is closely related to another interesting word that is critical to help us understand the Black Sea. "Meromictic."

A meromictic body of water is one where the surface waters and the deep waters do not intermix. This situation is fairly rare because normally the wind causes surface waters to mix with deep waters which is called holomictic. But if the deep waters are significantly colder or a significant difference in salinity exists, the layers will not mix. In some meromictic lakes the mixing is known not to occur for years, or decades or maybe even centuries!

The Black Sea is very unusual compared to all other Seas. There are essentially two different worlds contained in the shallow and deep layers.

The "shallow" layer has been shown to extend down to about 200 meters in depth (600feet) on average.

Monimolimnionic refers to the deep layer that suffers from an acute lack of dissolved oxygen. Since the surface layer does not mix with the deeper layer, almost no oxygen is transported down deep.

The "mixolimnion" is the surface layer.

The meromictic monimolimnion in the Black Sea is more saline (high in salt) than the mixolimnion above because the Black Sea gets a constant flow of salty water from the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporous Strait.

And the mixolimnion gets a constant charge of fresh low-salinity water from the many rivers that empty into the Black Sea.

This results in the Black Sea having a very low salinity near the surface as compared to the open oceans of the Pacific or Atlantic or Southern Ocean.

Coming up soon in this blog we will explore the many fascinating rivers that flow into the Black Sea.

Step by step we will build up our mental picture of the structure and details that make the Black Sea so wonderful. And the details will help us to understand the many dynamic factors that collide together to generate the fractal, natural beauty of the Black.