Abstract

Water covers seven tenths of the Earth's surface and occupies an estimated total volume of 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (km³). Of all the water found on Earth, 97% is marine. Maximum of this water is at a temperature of 2 to 3°C and devoid of light; 62% is under high pressure (>100 atm). Microscopic phytoplankton and associated bacteria generate a complex food web that can extend over long distances and extreme depths. The marine environment looks so vast that it will not be able to be exaggerated by pollution; however, in coastal areas human activities are increasingly disrupting microbial processes and damaging water quality.

Nepal Journal of Biotechnology. Dec. 2015 Vol. 3, No. 1: 68-70