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Did you know....... 

  • If all the gold suspended in the Earth's seawater was extracted, it would provide each person with approximately 9 pounds of this valuable precious metal.
  • The Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench off Guam is the deepest place on the ocean floor at 35,802 feet.
  • The highest tides of up to 53 feet occur in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada.
  • The average deep ocean temperature is just above freezing at 39 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Ninety-nine percent of the living space on Earth is in the oceans.
  • The longest mountain range on Earth is the Mid-Ocean Ridge, which encircles the globe from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean into the Indian Ocean and crossing the Pacific Ocean.
  • The largest animal on earth is the 110 feet long, 200-ton blue whale, which has a heart the size of a small car.
  • If all of the 328 cubic miles of seawater found on Earth was piled on top of all the land above sea level, it would cover the land by 5.7 miles!
  • Eighty percent of marine pollution comes from land-based sources, such as runoff pollution, which includes many small sources, like septic tanks, cars, trucks and boats, plus larger sources, such as farms, ranches and forest areas.
  • The oceans contain 97% of the Earth's water and cover around 71% of the Earth's surface.
  • The shrinking Antarctic ice sheet is the coldest, driest place on Earth.
  • A group of jellyfish is called a smack.
  • The snakelike oarfish, at 50 feet, is the longest bony fish in the ocean.
  • The plankton-filtering whale shark is the biggest cartilaginous fish in the ocean.
  • Many fish change sex during their lives and some rare deep water species are known to have both sex organs.
  • Ninety per cent of all volcanic activity on Earth occurs in the ocean.
  • France is the only country to harness tidal power as an energy source. French engineers have extrapolated that if tidal power was harnessed globally, it could slow down the earth's rotation by 24 hours every 2,000 years.
  • The largest numbers of salt-water fish are found in the Southern Hemisphere, as these waters are not largely exploited by man.
  • A bluefin tuna is one of the fastest swimming bony fish having been clocked swimming up to 55 miles per hour.
  • If all the polar ice were to melt, sea levels would rise 500-600 feet globally resulting in 85-90% of the Earth's surface being covered by water.
  • The Earth is covered by one hydrosphere of connecting water divided into seven ocean areas: Arctic, North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian, and Antarctic Oceans.
  • The South China Sea is the largest sea at 1,148,500 square miles.
  • The largest ocean current is off Japan, the Kuroshio Current that travels 25-75 miles per day and extending 3,300 feet deep.
  • A medicinal drug made from extracts of New Zealand's green-lipped mussel seems to relieve arthritis symptoms.
  • Bermuda has the largest, northernmost coral reef system in the world.
  • Surgeonfish and doctorfish get their name from their use of caudal spines to slash prey.
  • The two most venomous marine animals are believed to be the blue-ringed octopus and the box jelly of the Pacific Ocean.
  • Anemone fish as other types of reef fish are hermaphroditic. The most dominant fish in a group becoming a female and the second most dominant becoming a male. If the most dominant female dies then the second dominant male becomes a female.
  • Though sponges are considered sessile or non-motile, some species up to 10 inches in size can move 4 mm a day.
  • A blue hole in the ocean forms when the roof of an underwater cave collapses.
  • Research has indicated that saltwater with high levels of hydrocarbons has a high prevalence of abnormal fish with scale and fin aberrations.
  • The flesh of a six-foot oil fish, which lives in deep water worldwide, has potent oil, which acts as a laxative in humans.
  • Parrotfish take up to 20 minutes to produce a protective mucous cocoon in which they sleep.
  • Some marine fish can swallow prey two to three times longer than themselves.
  • Most ocean life known lives in the upper 300 feet and represents only about 2.5% of the world's oceans.
  • Fish from the ocean's twilight zone are thought to take one hour to swim more than 1,000 feet to feed at the ocean's surface at night.
  • Sperm whales can remain submerged in the ocean for 90 minutes and can dive deeper than 1,200 feet.
  • At 6,000 feet below the ocean surface, the pressure reaches over one ton per square inch.
  • Around 24,000 metric tons of plastic packaging ends up in the Atlantic Ocean every year. Many of it ends up killing sea turtles, whales, birds and polluting our beaches.
  • A shortfin mako can leap 18 feet into the air when hooked.
  • Even though the Sargasso Sea is loaded with Sargassum seaweed and related associated organisms, it is considered a biological desert.
  • From the Spiny Dogfish's stomach and liver comes an antibiotic-acting substance called squalamine, which shows promise in fighting cancer, killing bacteria and fungi.
  • Pacific Humpback Whales herd fish for easy capture by blowing underwater clouds of bubbles. This process is called bubble netting and a pod of Humpbacks sometimes cooperative feed in this manner for 24 hours at a time.
  • In terms of continental drift, Bermuda, on the North American Plate, is estimated to be moving at a rate between 2-4 cm/yr whereas the fast moving Pacific and Nazca Plates are estimated to be moving at a rate of 15 - 17 cm/yr.