topic description

for my blog post this week im going to use the rough draft of my topic description for my reasearch paper. I think it will help me if I do the rough drafts here and then turn in a final edited draft to see if mr. sutherland or anyone else for that matter will help me proof read, because i honestly have no idea what to do and a fresh sewt of eyes would really be helpful.

My topic is the destruction of marine habitats and ecosystems. I picked this topic because it is something I have always been passionate about ever since I was a little girl the ocean has always fascinated me, I always saw it as clean and untouchable but as I got older I stared to realize that things were changing on the news I heard about oil spills and the beaches I went to were closed and absolutely covered in garbage. What was once a dear childhood memory is now something I cannot recognize.
What I have learned so far is that there are so many different types of pollution and they include but are not limited to sewage, marine debris, toxic chemicals, heavy metals, oil, and radioactive materials. In the case of sewage it pollutes by being dumped into the sea with other harmful things and when it decomposes the bacteria that eat it use up oxygen that would otherwise have been used by fish and plant life. The types of marine debris are undetonated bombs, abandoned off shore oil rigs, out dated rocket engines, drums of toxic chemicals and radio active waste, sunken ships, automobiles, cans, bottles, pieces of wood, plastic materials, and plenty of other items. There are two types of plastic debris in the ocean manufactured and raw. Raw plastic comes in resin pellets that can be melted down and made into a number of materials. They are transported in bulk. Because they are very lightweight, they are easily blown away by wind. As many as 34,000 pellets per square kilometer can be found in some areas of the Pacific Ocean. When toxic chemicals are dumped into the ocean they are absorbed by plankton and usually the plankton die but if they do survive and are eaten the fish becomes contaminated and mutated and possibly infertile. The toxic heavy metals that have been found in the ocean are lead, mercury, cadmium, and copper. If an area is infected with heavy metals the marine life in that area can all be compromised. What we call oil pollution is actually petroleum. Since oil is lighter than water it initially floats to the surface and absorbs sunlight, smothering plankton, then it coats seabirds and other marine life but the oil breaks down the protective shield that the birds developed to make themselves water proof causing them to sink and drown and when ingested by the birds it causes intestinal problems and liver failure. When radioactive materials enter the ocean they generally affect larger animals more and can cause somatic effects (direct) and genetic effects.
What I would like to focus on is the different types of pollution in each ocean putting a larger emphasis on oil spills and marine debris. I would also like to include the effects that humans directly have on marine animals including but not limited to the effects that ambient noise has on whales, shark fining, and whaling.