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The ocean is one of Earth's greatest enigmas, as it completely overpowers our planet, covering much more area than land, and yet we seem to know less about it than Mars, a planet that is millions of miles away.During a 30-day expedition, scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute removed the top layer of the seafloor and made an astonishing discovery. They found caves filled with giant tube worms, some 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) long, among other creatures. This discovery reveals a thriving ecosystem that was completely unknown until now, suggesting that many more undiscovered organisms may exist in the ocean's depths.
As we go about our lives, especially if we don't live near a coast, oceans can remain a kind of far-off concept. We know they're in danger, they pose a threat, they hold great wonder and adventure, and they have been romanticized by seemingly every writer that ever was. But how well do you really know the oceans?
Click through to learn some facts that will forever change your perspective of our planet Earth.
While humans love to think we’re the center of the world, and even as our overpopulation becomes a real problem, the fact remains that our oceans cover 70% of Earth’s surface, and thus majority of life is aquatic. An incredible 94% of the Earth’s living species exist within the oceans.
Earth’s longest chain of mountains, the Mid-Ocean Ridge, is almost entirely beneath the ocean, stretching across a distance of 65,000 km (40,389 miles). It’s 10 times longer than the Andes!
How could that be? Well, these lakes and rivers form when seawater seeps up through thick layers of salt beneath the seafloor, causing the salt to collapse and form depressions. The dissolved salt makes the water denser than the water above it, so it settles into the depressions. They even have shorelines and waves of their own.
According to the Ocean Service, humans have explored less than 5% of Earth’s oceans, which is why our maps of Mars are more detailed than that of the oceans, despite the latter being remarkably closer.
Since very little of the oceans have been explored, and most species are aquatic, it is estimated that 91% of the species that exist under the sea have yet to be discovered.
Did you know that the ocean has tons of cables in it? For the past few decades, submarine cables buried deep within the oceans have carried more than 99% of intercontinental data traffic. According to CNN, there are around 380 underwater cables in operation around the world, spanning a length of over 745,645 miles (1.2 million km).
From the ones we've heard about to all the ones history has forgotten, the oceans host an estimated three million shipwrecks, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Thanks to millions of shipwrecks, the ocean is home to countless treasures and artifacts. Some estimate that there are more treasures wasting away on the bottom of the ocean than in all the world's museums combined.
While us land mammals think of trees when we imagine major oxygen producers, most of the planet's oxygen is actually produced by marine plants, nearly all of which are marine algae like phytoplankton, kelp, and algal plankton. Scientists estimate they're responsible for around 70% of the atmosphere's oxygen, National Geographic reports.
Since oceans have an average depth of 12,100 feet, but light waves can only penetrate 330 feet of water, everything below that point is dark. How strange to know that most of the planet exists perpetually in darkness!
The Zhemchug Canyon, for example, located in the Bering Sea, is 8,520 feet deep—almost 2,500 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon.
You might not have thought volcanoes could erupt underwater, but in fact 90% of all volcanic activity on the planet happens in the ocean. The biggest known concentration of active volcanoes is in the South Pacific, which contains an impressive 1,133 volcanoes.
The largest ocean waves aren't visible from the shore, but are instead called "internal waves" and typically occur between two fluids with two different densities. They can reportedly travel for thousands of miles and grow to be 650 feet tall!
Tsunamis are triggered by seismic events and can move across the ocean at 805 km (500 miles) per hour when the ocean depth is 6 km (3.7 miles), reports the Natural History Museum of Utah. When they're in deep water they are usually only a few inches above the surface, but as they move towards land and shallower depths they increase in above-surface size and slow down.
At its widest point—from Indonesia to Colombia—the Pacific Ocean is actually much wider than the Moon. This expanse of ocean is 19,794 km (12,300 miles) across, which is more than five times the diameter of the Moon!
The tallest waterfall on land is Angel Falls in Venezuela, which has a drop of over 3,200 feet. But that's nothing compared to the Denmark Strait Cataract, an underwater waterfall in between Greenland and Iceland. It was formed by the temperature difference in the water on either side of the strait, and results in a drop of 11,500 feet. According to the National Ocean Service, the flow rate of the waterfall is more than 123 million cubic feet per second.
In the Mariana Trench, some 35,802 feet below the surface, you'll find the deepest point on the planet, where the water pressure is eight tons per square inch. To put it in perspective, it would feel like you were trying to hold up 50 jumbo jets.
A dozen people have set foot on the Moon, but just three people have managed to make it to the Mariana Trench because of the extreme conditions there.
Excessive sunlight can damage the algae that live inside coral, particularly in shallow water. As a form of natural inbuilt protection, the corals fluoresce and create proteins that act as a sort of sunscreen for the algae so they can continue to feed on them.
While many of the deepest parts of the ocean hover around 2-4ºC (35.5-39ºF), there are places where the water coming out of hydrothermal vents in the seafloor can reach up to 400ºC (750ºF). The only thing that stops the water from boiling is reportedly the intense pressure at these depths.
Though it's extremely diluted, there is reportedly around 20 million tons of gold dispersed throughout the oceans and embedded in the ocean floor. It's not cost-effective to mine, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that if all of the gold were extracted from the world's oceans, each person on Earth could have 9 lbs (4 kilograms) of it.
Not only does a large part of the planet exist beneath the ocean, but half of the United States is underwater, too!
The largest living structure is the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. It covers an area of 344,468 square km (133,000 square miles) and is so huge it can actually be seen from outer space.
"The ocean is the largest solar energy collector on earth," reports the NOAA. Since greenhouse gases block heat from escaping our planet's atmosphere, all that energy must go somewhere, and it's always the oceans. Rising ocean temperatures have become a big threat to our planet.
If all of the glaciers and sheets of Arctic sea ice melted at the same time, the sea level would rise an estimated 262 feet, which is about the height of a 26-story building, reports NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For reference, that's just shy of the Statue of Liberty.
In addition to climate change, pollution is also negatively affecting our oceans. According to Conservation International, humanity dumps eight million metric tons of plastic into the ocean every year. To put that in reference, it's estimated that in a little less than 30 years there will be more plastic in the ocean than there are fish.
The ocean's beloved hue is a result of the water absorbing colors in the red part of the light spectrum and leaving behind the blue part of the spectrum. But the ocean can take on other colors when light bounces off various sediments and particles. That said, the deeper you go, the bluer it will always get because blue wavelengths penetrate much deeper than some other wavelengths.
"The Bloop" is the most famous underwater sound, captured in 1997 by hydrophones set out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is one of the loudest sounds ever recorded, picked up by sensors over 4,828 km (3,000 miles) away. After 15 years, the NOAA concluded that the noise came from an icequake, when seismic activities cause a break in frozen ground.
In 2002, scientists reportedly discovered an area in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean, between Baja California and Hawaii, where coastal great white sharks migrate to in the winter. The scientists named the spot the White Shark Café since sharks tend to hang out there for a while before heading back to the coast.
Sources: (Ocean Today) (Best Life) (Trafalgar) (CNN) (Live Science)
See also: Why the news about "cocaine sharks" is even worse than you think
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LIFESTYLE Water bodies
The ocean is one of Earth's greatest enigmas, as it completely overpowers our planet, covering much more area than land, and yet we seem to know less about it than Mars, a planet that is millions of miles away.During a 30-day expedition, scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute removed the top layer of the seafloor and made an astonishing discovery. They found caves filled with giant tube worms, some 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) long, among other creatures. This discovery reveals a thriving ecosystem that was completely unknown until now, suggesting that many more undiscovered organisms may exist in the ocean's depths.
As we go about our lives, especially if we don't live near a coast, oceans can remain a kind of far-off concept. We know they're in danger, they pose a threat, they hold great wonder and adventure, and they have been romanticized by seemingly every writer that ever was. But how well do you really know the oceans?
Click through to learn some facts that will forever change your perspective of our planet Earth.