Ocean facts

March 20, 2012 | In: Geography Facts

Let’s begin by naming the 4 oceans on planet Earth:

The Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and the Arctic are the biggest in the world. The Earth Ocean, though, is made up of more than 20 seas and 4 oceans. Added up, they have almost 328,000,000 cubic miles of seawater, covering more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. Together they weigh 1,400,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

The biggest depth is located in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean; it has 36,198 ft (11.033m), while the tallest mountain, Mount Everest, measures 29,022ft (8846 m). Imagine it would sink almost a mile.

The world’s longest coastline belongs to Canada, which has a total of 15% of the world’s total, approximately 56,453 miles (91,000km). There are a total of 372,384 coast miles around the world. That’s almost 600,000 km.

The Pacific Ocean has the same volume as the Moon.

Beneath the oceans sometimes earthquakes occur, and with them, the tsunamis. The biggest recorder tsunami measured 210feet (64m) above the sea level when it reached the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1737.

The biggest protein resource in the world is found in the oceans. The total annual commercial harvest of fish is 85 million metric tons. These fish have to be carried to land. With ships, of course. In fact, more than 90% of the world’s trade is carried by ships.

The oceans help us to communicate. Hundreds of years ago, they carried letters, tens of years ago, the carried a telegraph. Today, more than half of the world’s communication cables are underwater.

The ocean water is very salty. If we could dry all the water, we would be buried under 500 feet (150 m) of salt.