God
has said in the Quran:
''Or (the unbelievers’ state) is like the darkness in
a deep sea. It is covered by waves, above which are waves, above
which are clouds. Darknesses, one above another. If a man stretches
out his hand, he cannot see it....'' (Quran, 24:40)
This
verse mentions the darkness found in deep seas and oceans, where
if a man stretches out his hand, he cannot see it. The darkness
in deep seas and oceans is found around a depth of 200 meters
and below. At this depth, there is almost no light (see figure
15). Below a depth of 1000 meters there is no light at all.1
Human beings are not able to dive more than forty meters without
the aid of submarines or special equipment. Human beings cannot
survive unaided in the deep dark part of the oceans, such as
at a depth of 200 meters.
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Figure
15: Between 3 and 30 percent of the sunlight is reflected
at the sea surface. Then almost all of the seven colors
of the light spectrum are absorbed one after another in
the first 200 meters, except the blue light. (Oceans, Elder
and Pernetta, p. 27.)
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Scientists
have recently discovered this darkness by means of special equipment
and submarines that have enabled them to dive into the depths
of the oceans.
We
can also understand from the following sentences in the previous
verse, “...in a deep sea. It is covered by
waves, above which are waves, above which are clouds....”,
that the deep waters of seas and oceans are covered
by waves, and above these waves are other waves. It is clear
that the second set of waves are the surface waves that we see,
because the verse mentions that above the second waves there
are clouds. But what about the first waves? Scientists have
recently discovered that there are internal waves which “occur
on density interfaces between layers of different densities.”2
(see figure 16).
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Figure
16: Internal waves at interface between two layers of
water of different densities. One is dense (the lower
one), the other one is less dense (the upper one). (Oceanography,
Gross, p. 204.) |
The
internal waves cover the deep waters of seas and oceans because
the deep waters have a higher density than the waters above
them. Internal waves act like surface waves. They can also break,
just like surface waves. Internal waves cannot be seen by the
human eye, but they can be detected by studying temperature
or salinity changes at a given location.3
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Footnotes:
(1)
Oceans, Elder and Pernetta, p. 27.
(2)
Oceanography, Gross, p. 205.
(3)
Oceanography, Gross, p. 205.
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