Layers of darkness of the deep sea

  Most of the seas and oceans are covered with thick culumus clouds that block a great proportion of sunlight, as is sown by most satellite pictures. these clouds reflect back a lot of the sun's rays and keep out a lot of its light. Of the light that remainis, the ater reflect back a great deal of it, and absorbs the rest, so that the light decreases the deeper you go in the water. In his book Marines Optict, Gerloff says that the level of light in the water of the ocean is reducedat a depth of 35 metters to ten percent of its level at the surface, and to 1 percent  at a depth of 85 metetes, and to 0,1 percent at a depth of 135 metters, and to 0,01 percent at a depth 190 metters. After a depth of 1,000 metters the darkness grows so deep that there is virtually  no visibiliti and if a man stretches out his hand, he would not be able to se it.

  These astonishing scientific facts are mentioned in the Holy Qur'an which came down to Arabs in the desrts who did not  know how to swim or sail in the sea an oceans. In the fortieth Verse of  Al-Noor, Allah Most High, says:

أَوْ كَظُلُمَٰتٍۢ فِى بَحْرٍۢ لُّجِّىٍّۢ يَغْشَىٰهُ مَوْجٌۭ مِّن فَوْقِهِۦ مَوْجٌۭ مِّن فَوْقِهِۦ سَحَابٌۭ ۚ ظُلُمَٰتٌۢ بَعْضُهَا فَوْقَ بَعْضٍ 
إِذَآ أَخْرَجَ يَدَهُۥ لَمْ يَكَدْ يَرَىٰهَا ۗ وَمَن لَّمْ يَجْعَلِ ٱللَّهُ لَهُۥ نُورًۭا فَمَا لَهُۥ مِن نُّورٍ

"Or the (state of a disbeliever) is like the darkness in a vast deep sea, overwhelmed with waves topped by waves, topped by dark clouds, (layer of) darkness upon darkness: if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! And he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there ia no light."

  This Verse is in accordance with these facts, as they affirm that the deepsea is mostly covered by clouds. Tte word "like the darknes" indicates that there is no vision, and that is also supported by the word "in the vast deef sea (fi bahrin lujjiy)". Lujjiy refert to that which  is very dark and very deep. The fish at that depth have no eyes; rather they are uquipped with bioluminescence, as montioned in the Encyclopaedia Britanica. This what is mean when Allah,  the Almighty, says: '' And he for whom Allah hes notappointed light, for him there is no light." These fish are able to find their way by means of light-producimg fleshy growts that Allah, the Exalted, has created in their bodies. The sea floor slopes and change colour gradually, fading to blue before dissappearig altogether as the depth increases. As the light spectrum decreases as the depth increases, new type of darkness develop which prevent seeing some colour of the spectrum.

     Hence, Allah, the Exalted, says ''Zulumaat"  (usually translated as"darkness" although it is a plural form, e.i., darkness), and He did not say "Zulmah" (singular). He said: " (layer of) darkness upon darkness" (lit. darknesses one above another).

 Dr. Williams Hay notedthat fisherman are able to use the differences in the color of water to determine the depth with remarcable precision. As mentioned earlier, nowadays the simplest scientific tool that is used to measure  the depth to which light penetrates the ocean waters Secchi disk, which it becomes imposible to see it, which is taken as a set point.

 

Movenment of internal waves

   The image of layers of waves, one above anothe, on  the surface of the sea, is breath- taking. This phenomenon is whell-know to sailors and fisherman, but the strangest thing which man discovered only a hundred years ago is that there are internal waves in the depths of the oceans, which appear along the interface between two layers of water that differ from one another in term of density, presure, temperature, tide and wind effect, as mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Britanica.



The difference in density in the open ocean are les than those in costal areas where freshwater flow intio the sea from rivers, steamsand so on. THe interface that separates the different densites is formed at the main point of temperature decline, so it separates the water of the warm surface layer from the water of the depth which is cold.

    The thickness of the warm layer may from a few dozen to hundreds of meters.

The waves that are formed on this interface between the two layers of water that differ in density, and temperature are similar to the waves on the surface, but they cannot be seen easily from the surface. The formation of these waves consumes a great deal of energy which could be used  to push a ship forward. We find that some ships which sail on these waters suddenly lose the ability to move forward whend they enter what is know as stsgnsnt water, which was discovered and studied by the Swedist scientist Dr. Ekman at the begining of the twentieth century, as mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Britanica.

What is meant is that the waves are created in the vast deep sea, and this is what was confirmed by oceanogrphers when they said that the deep sea is deffirent from the portion of the sea that is closer to the surface, and that the internal waves only form in the interface between the upper portion of the sea and the deep sea. these internal waves are of different types, the most important of which  are those that form in straits and channel, for example  in the Straits of Gibraltar, where the incoming flow of the strong surface current and the outgoing flow  of  the lower current cause internal waves to enter from the Atlanic Oceanto the Strait, as if they are broken waves, like the foamy waves that roll up onto the shore, which cause a great deal of internal tunoil. Thus there are clouds and there are surface wafes and internal waves. When the rays of sunlight strike, the clouds absorbs some of them and that is one kind of shade or darkness. When the rays strike the surface waves, the wafes also reflect some of the light, and when the rays strike the internal waes more of the light is reflected back.  This is another kind of shade or darknes. Then the desity of the deep water absorbs what is left of the sun's rays at a depth of 1,000 metters, and there is total darkness in this vast deep sea, what Holy Qur'an calls'' (layers of)  darkness upon darknes".


Scientific references

The molecules of water and salt, organic material and microscopic creature all come together to cause a reduction in the intencity of the available solar rays as depth increases. In general, each species of fish of the order Osteichthys exists in the deepest depths of the oceans, usually at a depth of more than 600 metters and even as deep as 2,700 metters. Between 2.000 and 9,000 feet there are more than one dozn species which include sea fish species that are characterized by a big mouth and light-producing fleshy growth on one or more parts of the body which are used to attract prey or potential mates. These and other strange features which are characteristic of deep sea fish show developmental adaptation to the intense pressure pressure and cold, and especially the darkness, of their environment.

Its also says:

There exist waves at the internal interfaces of the ocean, and these interfaces result from sudden changes in density as the depth increases; the waves which result from that are called internal vaves.The way in which  these internalwaves come about is due to tidal effectsor the effect of winds and chages in pressure in some cases. A ship my also cause internal waves if the upper layer of water is not deep or is low in salinity. Ekma came out with a theory, in a demonstration of this empirical talens, concerning what is known as dead or stagnant water, which causes ships to become immobile, shifting about in place because of  a layer of freshwater that appears on top of the sea due to melting snow.


The miraculous aspect

The miraculous aspect of this Qur'nic verce is that it clearly states that the exist "darkness" in the depths of the sea that are piled one on top of the other, and there are internal waves in the deep sea and oceans, and that these seas and oceans are usualy convered bi thick clouds which blogk a considerable  amount of the sun's rays. This is that was discoveed by scientific studies at the end of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, modern sciece discovered a strange phenomenon that only occurs in the  "vast deep sea" , which is that when light reaces  a depth of five metters, the red color disappears. When it reaces 30 metters, a new type of darkness emerges in which orange light disappears. at a depth of 50 metters, yellow light begins to disappear. At a depth of 100 metters, green light disappears.