The Ocean

2009-09-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

The ocean covers 72 percent of the Earth's surface.

Most scientists think life began in the ocean over 3 billion years ago. Today, the ocean contains an amazing array of life at every depth.

Now the ocean has an amazing variety of life of marine animals and plants. If we want to see them we can dive and see how these incredible species live. Like the blue whale that is the largest animal in the world.

Life in the ocean depends on energy. No animal can move or grow without energy. Most ocean animals get their energy by eating plants or other animals.

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/planetocean/ocean.html

The Earth's oceans are all connected to one another. Until the year 2000, there were four recognized oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic. In the Spring of 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization delimited a new ocean, the HYPERLINK "http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/oo.html" Southern Ocean (it surrounds Antarctica and extends to 60 degrees latitude).

There are also many seas (smaller branches of an ocean); seas are often partly enclosed by land. The largest seas are the South China Sea, the Caribbean Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/ocean/

The ocean is layered: warmer on top, cold at the bottom. Organisms move from one layer to another, and plant and animal remains containing nutrients "rain" down, but the layers stay fairly separate in all but a few places.

Coastal upwelling occurs against the western sides of continents in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific. There, colder water rises to replace warm surface water blown out to sea by strong offshore winds. Upwelling supports about half of the world's fisheries, although these cool waters account for only 10 percent of the surface area of the global ocean

http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/oceanography_currents_1.html

Pacific ocean

One of the Pacific Ocean’s greatest assets is fish, including herring, salmon, sardines, snapper, swordfish, tuna, and shellfish. In 1996, over half (60%) of the world’s total fish catch came from the Pacific Ocean. Pearls are harvested along Australia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Philippines. Exploitation of offshore oil and gas reserves is playing an ever-increasing role in the energy supplies of Australia, New Zealand, China, the United States, and Peru.

http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/extreme2004/mission/divelocation/pacific.html

Poem

Traveling from a little river to an ocean

tapping back into the forbidden waters that you vowed not to intersect

Drowning yourself in the HYPERLINK "http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ocean-38/" \t "_top" beauty of the ocean,
this ocean that has hurt and taught so many
This ocean that you can't resist,
something that you have yearned to feel

If people are smaller than the ocean
than that explains a different meaning
why the waves come and wash away the rules that exists in the river
why the ocean can take you away from the main currents
and back into rivers and grasses
that you never thought existed

Why does the ocean lead us on
and get us used to a constant HYPERLINK "http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ocean-38/" \t "_top" travel then jerks you into a different direction
smashing your feelings against HYPERLINK "http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ocean-38/" \t "_top" hard rocks
pushing you into rough waters
only to temporarily comfort you
and repeat the cycle again

Maybe the ocean is beyond powerful
for it holds precious jewels and nutrients that help humanity survive
We need its waters,
we crave its roughness
and depend on it to teach us lifelong lessons

The ocean has seen us in our worse moments,
our happiest memories,
our sadiest tragedies.
The ocean has read our thoughts
and washed away parameters

When do we graduate from its tides,
where do we go after we have progressed from the waters?