Interesting Ocean Facts for Kids
The oceans are vast and wide, and are super cool fun to have a dip in too, or even go diving and snorkelling. But they are so much more than that. Read on for some awesomely interesting facts about the oceans of the world.
What you need to know about Oceans
Did you know that about 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans? Wow, that’s a lot!
- Have you been in the sea and all of a sudden the water is way down the beach and next thing it’s creeping up higher? Well this is called the tides and they are caused by the Earth rotating while the Moon and Sun’s gravitational pull does this to the water. Pretty interesting huh?
- We already know of hundreds of thousands of species in the oceans, but scientists think that there are still millions to be discovered. This is because we’ve only explored 5% of the oceans around us.
- The largest and deepest ocean on Earth is the Pacific Ocean. Unbelievably this ocean alone covers about 30% of the Earth’s surface.
The Pacific Ocean’s name means ‘peaceful sea’. Cool, that’s the place to go swimming and diving then!
- The Mariana Trench, in the western Pacific Ocean, is the deepest known area of the Earth’s oceans. Its deepest point is about 11km.
- The Pacific Ocean has about 25,000 different islands. That’s way more than any other ocean in the world.
- The Pacific Ocean is surrounded by what’s called the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’. This is because there are heaps of active volcanoes. Hmmm, that’s not the place to visit.
- The second largest ocean on Earth is the Atlantic Ocean; it covers over 21% of the Earth’s surface.
Amelia Earhart was the first female to fly all alone across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. Wow, what a journey!
The Indian Ocean is the third largest ocean on Earth; it covers about 14% of the Earth’s surface.
During winter the Arctic Ocean is almost completely covered in sea ice.
Wow, this is quite something. If you could take all the salt out of the sea and spread it across the Earth, you would have a 152m layer of salt covering everything. That is a whole heap of salt!
- The deeper you go into the oceans, the more things change. Plants can grow up to a depth of 107m, the colours of fish change; near the surface they can be blue, green or violet, but as you go deeper then they are silver or very light coloured. When fish are as low down as 3,000m they can even have their own lights…awesome!
- The Dead Sea is seriously salty, as it’s surrounded by desert. The extreme heat makes the sea water evaporate back into the atmosphere, which means there’s a huge amount of salt left over. Nothing can survive here. If you go into the Dead Sea, you will literally just float. As there is so much salt it creates a large upward force. So go and have a float on the Dead Sea and see if you can go down and dive.
- Have you heard of knots? Well this is measure of the speed at sea. 1 knot equals 1.85km per hour. Sailors use this measurement.
Have you ever put a sea shell to your ear and heard the sound of the ocean. Well it’s actually not the sound of the ocean, sorry, but it’s actually the sound of your blood roaring through the veins in your ears.
The longest mountain range in the world in actually underwater. How weird! It is 56,000km long. Whoa! It’s called the Mid-Oceanic Ridge and is a mountain chain that runs along the centre of the ocean basins.
- About 70% of the oxygen we breathe in comes from the oceans! Wow.
- The sea is home to the world’s largest living structure which is the Great
- Barrier Reef. It is about 2,600 km long and you can even check it out from the moon.
So, there’s some pretty amazing stuff on the world’s oceans! Do you have any super awesome facts to share with us? We would love to hear them!