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OCEAN TRIVIA

1) What percentage of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans?


The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface and holds over 1.3 billion cubic km of water.

2) How many oceans are there on Earth?


There is only one global ocean, but it is traditionally divided into 5 parts: The Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic Oceans.

3) How much of the ocean has been explored?


According to the National Ocean Service, just 5 percent of Earth's oceans have been explored and charted--especially the ocean below the surface. The rest remains mostly undiscovered and unseen by human eyes.

4) Which ocean is the largest?


Covering approximately 63 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth, the Pacific is by far the largest of the world's ocean basins.

5) How many shipwrecks are there in the ocean?


From the Titanic to Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria, the ocean floor is littered with about 3 million shipwrecks. The oldest wrecks include 10,000-year-old canoes.

6) How long does it take water to complete a full circuit of Earth's ocean?


The oceans not only have waves, tides and surface currents--they also have a constantly moving system of deep-ocean circulation driven by temperature and salinity. It is estimated to take 1,000 years for a "parcel" of water to complete the journey along this global conveyor belt.

7) Which ocean is shrinking?


The Atlantic Ocean is still growing because of sea-floor spreading from the mid-Atlantic Ridge, while the Pacific Ocean is said to be shrinking because the sea floor is folding under itself or subducting into the mantle.

8) What is the deepest known point in the ocean?


The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in Earth's oceans. In 2010 the United States Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping measured the depth of the Challenger Deep at 10,994 meters (36,070 feet) below sea level with an estimated vertical accuracy of ±40 meters.

9) What is the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?


The water pressure at the bottom of the trench is a crushing eight tons per square inch or about a thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level--the equivalent of being crushed under a pile of 100 fully grown elephants.

10) Which of the following creatures can survive in the Mariana Trench?


Despite the immense water pressure and absolute darkness, the trench is home to a diverse array of organisms including the zombie worm, sea cucumber, and dumbo octopus.

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