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We began our adventure by getting into two buses, one which held kids who later had a track meet and would be prioritized when we got ice cream, and the other with fewer kids, though would still end up back at the school at the end of the day. The bus ride took about an hour and a half but it was worth it when we got through the rocky zones to find lots of interesting creatures in the tidepools. I found crabs, hermit crabs, limpets, sea urchins, and LOTS of barnacles, although I fell and scratched my hand on a rock scattered with them. After a long morning of tide-pooling, we got back on the buses to go get ice cream and headed back to the school to prepare to go home.
Both high and low tides occur thanks to the moon. The moon claims something called a gravitational pull, and the gravitational pull causes what we call the tidal force. This means that earth, and its water pretty much erupts on the side closest to the moon and the side furthest from the moon. This cycle takes approximately 24 hours and 50 minutes and is what is referred to as high tide.
The spray zone is when the oceans spray and high waves make the rocks wet but are only submerged during very high tides or very severe storms. The spray zone is usually located around the beach's upper part, and that’s why you need incredibly aggressive actions to get it fully wet. People also call this zone the black zone.
The high intertidal zone is where floods peak during daily high tides but still remain dry in between longer intervals of the tides. The only sea life that can withstand the aggressive waves are things like barnacles, limpets, shore crabs, hermit crabs, and mussels. This zone also is known as the white zone.
The middle intertidal zone is where the tides flow twice a day, but there is a greater amount of sea life plants and animals that have inhabited this zone. Another name for this zone is the brown zone.
The low intertidal zone is technically always underwater but the only exception is the spring tides, which happen during a new and full moon. There is an increased amount of sea life in this zone because of the good protection created by the water. This zone is also known as the red zone.
When I was at Odiorne I saw lots of different forms of sea life, and sea plants. A few of my friends and I found lots of limpets, and treated them as our pets. And like I mentioned before, I also fell on my hand and got scratched by the barnacles on the rocks which surprisinly didn't hurt as much as when I got pinched by a crab, but unlike that time, it started bleeding. I also walked with my teacher and a handful of other kids in my grade to the drowned forest to find the 1000 year old tree stumps that are being buried by the sand and water. When I was walking around I found the sea floor scattered with baby crabs and hermit crabs and every so often I found a piece of an old lobster trap floating on top of the water. There was also many piles of different kinds of seaweed that surrounded the rocks and parts of the tide pools that I had to step through to travel around.
I saw the most variety of sea life in the low intertidal zone, also known as the red zone probably because of the good pretection brought by the water. The water prevents the sea life from being harmed from extreme wind and rain, and even falling rocks considering that the upper part of the beach is only rocks. It is also the most popular zone BECAUSE of the variety. The large variety of life gives other life under the water food so that it can stay alive.
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