Deep Seas and Internal Waves

[Rayaan]

I've found a very simple way to express my opinion on the matter Rayaan, since I seem to be failing to communicate the situation to you thusfar.

Where do you expect to find salt in a glass of water? The top.....or the bottom? Is the saltier -water- at the bottom of the glass heavier/denser, or is it the salt that's heavy/dense? Is this barrier or prohibition responsible for the behavior of salt poured into a glass of water, or the water in the glass with salt poured in....is Allah at work in your tumbler, as well as the sea - or might there be a simpler and better demonstrated explanation? Would you require a dispatch from the divine in order to have observed this, regardless of how it is achieved, or is it fairly apparent..to you...what happens in the glass? In the last diagram you posted, of the cenote...do you think that people living around it or drinking from it might have noticed, or had some way of noticing.... that there was saltwater at the bottom?

where did I find this you may ask? Oh....just the wiki on Halocline. Which also has a little graph about salinity and depth/temp....funny......doesn't seem to be a barrier or prohibition in the graph either?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halocline

The salt water will sink to the bottom. And yes, the salt water being poured into the glass of (non-salty) water is responsible for sinking to the bottom of it, due to its greater density.

But that simple explanation still doesn't invalidate the preventative role of the halocline found in the depths of the oceans. Evidently, the halocline does act as a barrier because it facilitates the stratification of the two layers by keeping them isolated along with debris, the level of oxygen, light trash, and many other things. The descriptions found in scientific writings about it are perfectly consistent with the definition of a barrier, as in the following, for example:

"In certain high latitude regions (such as the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, and the Southern Ocean) the surface waters are actually colder than the deep waters and the halocline is responsible for maintaining water column stability - isolating the surface waters from the deep waters. In these regions, the halocline is important in allowing for the formation of sea ice, and limiting the escape of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Haloclines are also found in fjords, and poorly mixed estuaries where fresh water is deposited at the ocean surface." - International Marine Consultancy

"It can act like a barrier, preventing leaf litter from the surrounding forest — along with plastic bags, soda cans and other light trash — from sinking into the denser saltwater. Along with the debris, the upper freshwater layer contains more oxygen than the saltwater below, and it supports a completely different set of life-forms." - Discover Magazine

"The resulting strong halocline is a barrier for vertical transport, leading to an oxygen deficit in deep water. Such a strong halocline is typical for deep brackish seas, e.g. also the Black Sea, and even in the Chesapeake (see above). As the halocline restricts the upward transport of nutrients, low human loads of the past centuries around the Baltic Sea likely assured that the system was largely oligotrophic." (Long-Term Ecological Research: Between Theory and Application, p. 171)

"The halocline in the Baltic Sea is usually at a depth of some 60–80 m and thus extends into the deepest parts of the western and central Gulf of Finland. [...] The strong halocline plays a crucial role in the overall stratification and mixing. It prevents vertical mixing of the water body down to the bottom. Normally, the deep waters below the halocline are to a large extent decoupled from the direct atmospheric forcing." (Preventive Methods for Coastal Protection: Towards the Use of Ocean Dynamics for Pollution Control, p. 189)

"Within the Baltic Proper, there is a marked salinity stratification, or halocline, separating waters of low salinity from the denser, more saline waters below. This halocline, which varies in depth from 60 to 70 metres, inhibits vertical mixing, and actually creates two separate water bodies through most of the Baltic Proper." (The Baltic Sea: New Developments in National Policies and International Cooperation, p. 246)

The halocline also has a much higher level of salinity than the rest of the body of water, which makes it much denser than the surrounding layers of water and makes it visible as well: "Specifically, a halocline has a different level of salinity than the rest of the body of water. Usually the halocline is the layer that has a much higher level of salinity than the layers above and below it. This high level of salinity also makes the layer denser." - AquaViews

Furthermore, in the following video, you can clearly see the halocline appearing as a hazy layer within the water from around 0:25 to 0:49.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OciU70BTiG8



All of the above is proof that the halocline is not merely an imaginary line in a diagram that is used for showing a shift in the relative salinity of water, as you asserted, erroneously. Rather, it is clearly a physical - and even visible - horizontal layer of liquid within the water which functions as a natural barrier. Sorry but oftentimes you're gonna have to learn about things in places beyond just a little Wiki article.

So you can accuse me of pigeonholing science into the Quran, but actually your own statements are not in agreement with science, as I've demonstrated here.