Benthic boundary layer

[2] The BBL serves as a transitional zone between the water column and the sediment layer by regulating biogeochemical processes and the flux of nutrients and organic materials.

The benthic boundary layer also contains nutrients important in fisheries, a wide array of microscopic life, a variety of suspended materials, and sharp energy gradients.

[2] The benthic boundary layer (BBL) represents a few tens of meters of the water column directly above the sea floor[3] and constitutes an important zone of biological activity in the ocean.

While the supply of POM (particulate organic matter), or marine snow, is relatively limited and inhibits species abundance, it sustains a complex yet understudied microbial loop that can maintain both meiofaunal and macrofaunal populations.

The benthic boundary layer (BBL) plays a vital role in the cycling of matter and is commonly referred to as the “endpoint” or "sink" for sediment material, which fuels high metabolic rates for microbial populations.

[7] With growing concern over the ultimate fate of matter in the ocean, knowledge of the complex biological processes in the deep sea BBL (deep-BBL) and how they affect future sedimentation and remineralization rates is valuable to the scientific community.

At sea depths of 1800m or greater, the BBL is noted as having a near homogeneous temperature and salinity with periodic fluxes of detritus or particulate organic matter (POM).

As the effects of anthropogenic activities begin taking an even greater toll on marine processes, long-term studies are essential in determining the health and stability of the deep-BBL.

[16] Current climate variation and warming could also play a major role in changes in the BBL by decimating living species present there and could prompt long-term studies in future scientific communities.