Oceans 11 Introduction Teachers Copy

•Ninety percent of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans. In 1993, scientists located the largest known concentration of active volcanoes on the sea floor in the South Pacific. This area, the size of New York state, hosts 1,133 volcanic cones and sea mounts. Two or three could erupt at any moment.

•The highest tides in the world are at the Bay of Fundy, which separates New Brunswick from Nova Scotia . At some times of the year the difference between high and low tide is 53 feet 6 inches, the equivalent of a three-story building.

•                     The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contain 97 percent of the Earth's water. Less than 1 percent is fresh water, and 2-3 percent is contained in glaciers and ice caps.

•                     Earth's longest mountain range is the Mid-Ocean Ridge, which winds around the globe from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic, skirting Africa, Asia and Australia, and crossing the Pacific to the west coast of North America. It is four times longer than the Andes, Rockies, and Himalayas combined.

•                     Canada has the longest coastline of any country, at 56,453 miles or around 15 percent of the world's 372,384 miles of coastlines.

•                      A slow cascade of water beneath the Denmark Strait sinks 2.2 miles, more than 3.5 times farther than Venezuela 's Angel Falls , the tallest waterfall on land.

•                     El Niño, a periodic shift of warm waters from the western to eastern Pacific Ocean , has dramatic effects on climate worldwide. In 1982-1983, the most severe El Niño of the century created droughts, crop failures, fires, torrential rains, floods, landslides--total damages were estimated at more than $8 billion.

•                     At the deepest point in the ocean the pressure is more than 8 tons per square inch, or the equivalent of one person trying to support 50 jumbo jets.

•                     At 3.8 degrees Celcius, the temperature of almost all of the deep ocean is only a few degrees above freezing.

•                     Although Mount Everest, at 29,028 feet, is often called the tallest mountain on Earth, Mauna Kea, an inactive volcano on the island of Hawaii , is actually taller. Only 13,796 feet of Mauna Kea stands above sea level, yet it is 33,465 feet tall if measured from the ocean floor to its summit.

•                     If the ocean's total salt content were dried, it would cover the continents to a depth of 5 feet.

•                     The Antarctic Ice Sheet is almost twice the size of the United States .

Arctic Ocean

   *The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean , and the recently delimited Southern Ocean). The Northwest Passage (US and Canada ) and Northern Sea Route ( Norway and Russia ) are two important seasonal waterways.

   * body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle

   * Area: total: 14.056 million sq km. Average depth 1280 m.

   * central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that, on average, is about 3 meters thick

Arctic Environment - current issues:

•                     endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage

•                      thinning polar icepack-melting could result in 66 meters of water worldwide

Atlantic Ocean

•                     Background:
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, but larger than the Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Arctic Ocean ).

•                     Average depth of 4279 m.

•                     The Kiel Canal ( Germany ), Oresund (Denmark-Sweden), Bosporus ( Turkey ), Strait of Gibraltar (Morocco-Spain), and the Saint Lawrence Seaway (Canada-US) are important strategic access waterways.

•                     body of water between Africa, Europe, the Southern Ocean, and the Western Hemisphere

•                     Area: total: 76.762 million sq km

•                     Environment - current issues:
endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales;

drift net fishing is hastening the decline of fish stocks and contributing to international

disputes; municipal sludge pollution off eastern US, southern Brazil , and

eastern Argentina ; oil pollution in Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo ,

Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea

Indian Ocean

•                     Background:
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, but larger than the Southern Ocean and Arctic Ocean ).

•                     body of water between Africa, the Southern Ocean, Asia, and Australia

•                     ocean floor is dominated by the Mid-Indian Ocean Ridge

•                     Area: total: 68.556 million sq km. Depth average 3960 meters.

Environment - current issues:

•                     endangered marine species include the dugong, seals, turtles, and whales; oil pollution in the Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, and Red Sea

Pacific Ocean

•                     Pacific Ocean Background:
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the world's five oceans (followed by the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Arctic Ocean ).

•                     Known as the peaceful ocean

•                     Location: body of water between the Southern Ocean, Asia, Australia , and the Western Hemisphere

•                     Area: total: 155.557 million sq km: covers about 28% of the global surface; larger than the total land area of the world. Average depth is 4280 meters.

Environment - current issues:

•                     endangered marine species include the dugong, sea lion, sea otter, seals, turtles, and whales; oil pollution in Philippine Sea and South China Sea
 

Southern Ocean

•                     Southern Ocean Background:
A decision by the International Hydrographic Organization in the spring of 2000 delimited a fifth world ocean - the Southern Ocean - from the southern portions of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean .

•                     The Southern Ocean is now the fourth largest of the world's five oceans

•                     Location: body of water between 60 degrees south latitude and Antarctica

•                     Area: total: 20.327 million sq km.

Environment - current issues:
increased solar ultraviolet radiation resulting from the Antarctic ozone hole in recent years, reducing marine primary productivity (phytoplankton) by as much as 15% and damaging the DNA of some fish; illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in recent years