10 interesting facts about the oceans

The ocean beckons and frightens, gives life and takes it away for millions of years. He separates people by thousands of kilometers and unites them with the common goal of his research. We dedicate our today’s rating to a dozen interesting facts about the oceans: the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, South and Arctic.

10 Occupy more than 70% of the Earth’s surface

It is known that a person consists of about 80% of water. This fact makes us related to our planet. After all more than 70% of the Earth’s territory is covered by oceans, and the World Ocean contains 96% of all water on earth.

9. The depths of the world’s oceans have not yet been explored

The depths of the world’s oceans have not yet been explored. This is due to the incredible volume of the ocean, which occupies more than 70% of the territory of our planet. Many points of the oceans are so deep that a person cannot find a technological solution for diving and exploration.

To understand how poorly we have studied the ocean, it is worth noting that diving more than three and a half kilometers one hundred percent will give science knowledge of a new type of living organisms.

8. The Arctic Ocean is the most unsalted ocean

The Arctic Ocean is the least saline ocean on earth.. It is the smallest ocean in terms of area and depth on planet Earth. It is located entirely in the northern hemisphere and is located between the mainland of Eurasia and North America.

The area of ​​the Arctic is 14,75 million square kilometers. The low salinity can be explained by the large amount of fresh water flowing into the ocean and its low evaporation rate.

7. The Pacific Ocean is the oldest on Earth

The Pacific Ocean is the oldest ocean on Earth, it is also the deepest and largest ocean in terms of area in the world.. The Pacific Ocean is also the leader in the islands located in it, of which there are more than 25 thousand.

The ocean was born more than 750 million years ago as a result of the breakup of Rodinium, the supercontinent of that time. The Pacific Ocean is home to more than a million different species of fish and other living creatures, and its southern part often plays the role of the last refuge for exhausted spaceships that sink here.

6. The largest island in the world, Greenland, is located in the Atlantic Ocean.

The largest island in the world, Greenland, is located in the Atlantic Ocean.. The area of ​​the island is 2 square kilometers, it is considered the coldest, most mysterious and largest among all the islands on Earth.

This land belongs to Denmark, although it exceeds its area by more than 50 times. The area of ​​Greenland is 80 percent ice, whose thickness reaches three kilometers, and the temperature drops to -47 degrees Celsius.

But here, despite the cold, almost 57 thousand people live, who have chosen the milder southwestern coast for life. The island shares four time zones, and in the capital of Greenland – the City of Nuuk, it has a six-hour difference with Moscow.

5. The oldest fish found in the Indian Ocean in 1939

In 1939, ichthyologists found the oldest fish in the Indian Ocean.. She lived at a depth and did not want to rise above 180 meters. The discovery produced an effect on those who found it, probably similar to meeting with a dinosaur.

The discovery, named Latimeria, filled a gap in the theory of evolution, which says that life originated from the ocean. The find was discovered by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, who was surprised by the unusual appearance of the fish, she placed it in a special museum to establish the species.

A long search for an answer to the question and the inability to save the fish from decay forced the scientist to make a stuffed animal out of the find. Another scientist who arrived later identified the fish, calling it a true representative of living fossils and naming it after the woman who made this important discovery.

4. Air pollution is one of the main causes of water pollution

In the modern world, with its pace of industrial growth and millions of factories, the air is polluted on a colossal scale. And this leads to a whole range of environmental problems. The largest of these is that air pollution from factories, gases from machines and human activity is one of the main causes of water pollution.

Harmful substances rise and concentrate in the clouds, creating the so-called greenhouse effect. But due to the fact that the clouds move across the sky, collecting harmful elements, they, sooner or later, reward the soil with precipitation. Poisoned water, passing through the soil and sending it, reaches the underwater rivers, which carry pollution into the world’s oceans.

3. At a depth there are underwater waves a hundred meters high

Often, nature brings down destructive waves on humanity that give death and sow chaos. Most often, the wind is to blame for the birth of such destructive phenomena. It lifts and moves layers of water, sometimes setting them at speeds up to a hundred kilometers per hour.

The largest wave caused by the wind was recorded by African sailors and was 34 meters high. In theory, such waves can reach 60 meters.

And the worst tragedy associated with waves is called a tsunami. Such a tsunami with a wave height of up to 40 meters, hitting the coast of Japan, claimed thousands of lives.

But in the depths of the sea, even these records are beaten, because waves can pass along the bottom, a hundred meters high. This phenomenon is widespread throughout almost the entire world’s oceans, and is associated with differences in water temperature at the bottom and complex bottom topography.

This process regulates the uniform movement of warm and cold water throughout the ocean, and it is possible to observe it only with the help of orbiting satellites.

2. There are about 20 million tons of gold in sea water

There are about 20 million tons of gold in sea water. Hundreds of years of navigation have made the seabed a real storehouse of treasures and artifacts. Due to the lack of another way to deliver valuable and heavy cargo between continents and empires, our ancestors transported valuable cargo exclusively by sea.

Many ships loaded with gold left ports in various parts of the world. But the imperfection of the design, the lack of experience in shipbuilding and the incorrect assessment of weather conditions prevented the ships from mooring at the port of destination. Barges with gold very often perished in the depths of the sea, strewn with gold at the bottom, which was intended as payment, gift or tribute.

This fact becomes the reason for numerous underwater expeditions, dives of divers and entire complexes of scientific exploration of the seabed. Everyone is eager to find and appropriate these nobody’s riches for themselves.

1. Over the past century, sea levels have risen

Over the past century, sea levels have risen. This is primarily due to the melting of glaciers. Fixed rise is equal to the whole 17 centimeters. The second reason for the increase in the amount of water is also related to global warming.

Water, when heated, increases in volume due to thermal expansion. At this rate, the water will rise another three meters over hundreds of years. There is a group of scientists who tend to believe that by 2100 the level of the world ocean will rise by another 0,5 – 2 meters.

This phenomenon poses the greatest danger to states located on islands with a long coastline, or located below sea level. It is worth noting that an increase in the level of only 20 centimeters will deprive almost a million people of their homes.