This book will take you on a journey to explore a wonderful and mysterious underwater world full of unique animals and plants You’ll learn fascinating facts and figures as you flick through its pages Inside you will find maps diagrams and colorful illustrations that tell a visual story about life in the ocean Most of the ocean still remains a secret Even so new discoveries are being made every day Humans are exploring the remotest parts of our blue planet and learning more and more about the deepest reaches of the oceans Why is the ocean blue Is it reflecting the color of the sky Not quite The ocean appears blue because of the way it filters sunlight Sunlight is a mix of red orange yellow green blue indigo and violet light These colors are the same as the colors of a rainbow Each color is made up of rays of light with a different wavelength It’s the value of this wavelength which makes a color different from the others The shortest wavelength is violet and the longest is red When sunlight hits the ocean the water quickly absorbs colors with long wavelengths red orange and yellow This leaves the short wavelength colors blue and green for us to see The ocean never ceases to amaze Let’s delve deeper into this remarkable and fragile environment and see what we can discover 6
So are you ready Take a deep breath and let’s plunge beneath the waves 7
One Planet One Ocean You may think that Earth is divided into five oceans the Pacific Atlantic Indian Southern Antarctic and Arctic Ocean If you look at a map of the world they are usually labeled this way The truth is they are all connected and part of one huge global ocean Stream Gulf Mexico of Gulf ATLANTIC OCEAN OPEN OCEAN The ocean is mostly open water Smaller areas of an ocean can include seas gulfs and bays These are usually partially enclosed by land The Coral Sea Gulf of Mexico and Bay of Bengal are among the largest in the world PACIFIC OCEAN THE SEVEN SEAS What exactly are the Seven Seas that are mentioned so often in books and films The answer depends on who you ask and when From ancient times until today the meaning of the Seven Seas has changed many times as people sailed around the world and came across parts they didn’t know about before Today the expression is often used to mean all of the world’s oceans and seas combined 8 SOUTHERN OCEAN
Did you know 96 5 1 6 1 7 0 2 The ocean holds 96 5 percent of all the water found on Earth 1 6 percent is stored in ice caps glaciers and permanent snow Another 1 7 percent is trapped in the ground Lakes rivers and swamps only make up a tiny fraction of Earth’s water about 0 2 percent ARCTIC OCEAN Ocean Ice caps Ground Lakes and rivers The ocean is one connected body of water But the physical properties of this water such as temperature salinity amount of salt pressure and the amount of light it receives can change from place to place The deeper you go the colder and darker the ocean gets There are also differences as you travel to different places across the globe For example tropical waters near the equator receive more direct sunlight This is why they are among the warmest in the world INDIAN OCEAN Did you know The salt in seawater comes from rocks on land and is flushed into the ocean by flowing rivers Humans can’t drink seawater because of the high level of salt in it Coral Sea THE OCEAN AND US The ocean supports life in many ways Much of the food we eat comes from the ocean Millions of people rely on fish and shellfish as their main source of protein A lot of the other food we eat every day contain ingredients that come from the ocean as well Plus some substances taken from plants and animals living in the ocean are used to make medicines that can help treat some illnesses Bay of Bengal 9
