Systems of Classification of Water Bodies Based Upon Salinity
| Thalassic series |
| >300 |
| hyperhaline |
| 60–80 |
| metahaline |
| 40 |
| mixoeuhaline |
| 30 |
| polyhaline |
| 18 |
| mesohaline |
| 5 |
| oligohaline |
| 0.5 |
Marine waters are those of the ocean, another term for which is euhaline seas. The salinity of euhaline seas is 30 to 35. Brackish seas or waters have salinity in the range of 0.5 to 29 and metahaline seas from 36 to 40. These waters are all regarded as thalassic because their salinity is derived from the ocean and defined as homoiohaline if salinity does not vary much over time (essentially constant). The table on the right, modified from Por (1972), follows the "Venice system" (1959).
In contrast to homoiohaline environments are certain poikilohaline environments (which may also be thallassic) in which the salinity variation is biologically significant. Poikilohaline water salinities may range anywhere from 0.5 to greater than 300. The important characteristic is that these waters tend to vary in salinity over some biologically meaningful range seasonally or on some other roughly comparable time scale. Put simply, these are bodies of water with quite variable salinity.
Highly saline water, from which salts crystallize (or are about to), is referred to as brine.
Read more about this topic: Salinity
Famous quotes containing the words systems of, systems, water, bodies and/or based:
“In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person.... Yes, it is women who keep the church going.”
—Don Marquis (1878–1937)
“Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Camels are snobbish
and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic—
even murderous.
Reindeer seem over-serious.”
—Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
“If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen would draw them to look like oxen, and each would make the gods bodies have the same shape as they themselves had.”
—Xenophanes (c. 570–478 B.C.)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)