text: Water is the medium of the oceans, the medium which carries all the substances and elements involved in the marine biogeochemical cycles. 
  Water as found in nature almost always includes dissolved substances, so water has been described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve so many substances. This ability allows it to be the "solvent of life"  Water is also the only common substance that exists as solid, liquid, and gas in normal terrestrial conditions. Since liquid water flows, ocean waters cycle and flow in currents around the world. Since water easily changes phase, it can be carried into the atmosphere as water vapour or frozen as an iceberg. It can then precipitate or melt to become liquid water again. All marine life is immersed in water, the matrix and womb of life itself. Water can be broken down into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen by metabolic or abiotic processes, and later recombined to become water again.
  While the water cycle is itself a biogeochemical cycle, flow of water over and beneath the Earth is a key component of the cycling of other biogeochemicals. Runoff is responsible for almost all of the transport of eroded sediment and phosphorus from land to waterbodies. Cultural eutrophication of lakes is primarily due to phosphorus, applied in excess to agricultural fields in fertilizers, and then transported overland and down rivers. Both runoff and groundwater flow play significant roles in transporting nitrogen from the land to waterbodies. The dead zone at the outlet of the Mississippi River is a consequence of nitrates from fertilizer being carried off agricultural fields and funnelled down the river system to the Gulf of Mexico. Runoff also plays a part in the carbon cycle, again through the transport of eroded rock and soil.