Benthic zone

The benthic zone is the area of ​​life ( habitat ) at, on and in the bottom of a body of water.

In inland waters, the seafloor is in the littoral ( the through -exposed, summer warm upper floor) and divided into the profundal zone ( the dark, cold lower floor).

The ocean floor ( marine benthic zone ) is divided into littoral (coastal zone), neritic zone ( shelf, shallow lake, up to 200 m water depth ), bathyal ( continental slope, 200 m to 4000 m), abyssal (4000 m to 6000 m) and Hadal. Bathyal, abyssal and Hadal together form the floors of the deep sea, which penetrates no light. A different definition is one of the bathyal not yet with the deep sea.

The Hadal ( gr to Hades 'underworld', adjective: hadal ) takes the deepest parts of the ocean floor from about 6000 m depth a - the term is not used uniformly. The Hadal is the area of ​​deep-sea trenches such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific with a depth of about 11,000 m. The world of life in this part of the deep ocean is largely unexplored, but probably that of the Abyssals similar. The organisms living here belong mainly to the decomposers, such as bacteria and cancers.

The cohabitation of Benthals is called benthos ( benthic ). The benthic phytal is the plant ( Phytobenthos ) populated flooded with light ( euphotic ) area of the lake bed.

See also: lake ecosystem