Ocean - Origin Of Ocean Water, Lithospheric Plates And The Origin Of The Seafloor, Weather Effects Of Ocean Waters - Hydrologic cycle
earth deeper oceans basins
Oceans are large bodies of saltwater that surround Earth's continents and occupy the basins between them. Ocean basins are the part of the seafloor that lies beyond the margins of the continents, generally in water deeper than 600 ft (183 m). Therefore, an ocean is both larger in area and deeper than a sea.
It may be that most of the water on Earth today has been cycling between the oceans, the land, and Earth's atmosphere for more than four billion years. However, small amounts of "new" water escape the planet's interior, from volcanoes, even today.
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As Earth formed in a cloud of gas and dust more than 4.5 billion years ago, a huge amount of lighter elements, including hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O), became trapped inside the planet as the gases condensed and formed molten rock. Materials of different densities separated out; in the young planet's molten interior, heavy elements sank and light elements rose. Gases rose through thousands of…
Water possesses the unusual property of being able to absorb a large amount of heat energy before its temperature changes. It follows that water must lose a large amount of heat energy before it cools noticeably. The net result of this phenomenon is that water, more than air or earth, tends to remain at the temperature at which it is already. Water is not given to sudden, wild extremes of temperat…
Oceans, like most natural phenomena, exist across a span of time called a "life cycle." For a new ocean to be born, the earth's crust beneath an ocean or a continent must be torn, or rifted, apart. An ocean basin ceases to exist because its lithosphere gets entirely subducted (that is what usually happens) or obducted (rare and localized). An ocean basin no longer grows when i…
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