The Fluid Earth Earth and Ocean Basins

What is Oceanography? Oceanography is the process of discovering unifying principals in data obtained from the ocean, its associated life forms, the atmosphere over water, and the bordering lands. It’s a part of Marine Science

Oceanography It draws on several disciplines, synthesizing the fields of geology, physics, biology, chemistry, and engineering as they apply to the ocean and its surroundings

What is Earth mainly composed of? Earth is mainly composed of water It is considered as a water planet Over 97% of the water on or near the Earth’s surface is contained in the ocean the ocean covers 71% of the earth’s surface and has influenced earth’s rocky crust and atmosphere Only 3% is held in land ice, groundwater, and freshwater lakes and rivers.

Ocean Defined as the vast body of saline water that occupies the depression of the Earth’s surface

Who Studies the Earth’s Ocean? Marine Geologist Focus on questions such as the composition of the inner Earth, the mobility of the Crust, and the characteristics of seafloor sediments. Have launched a heat probe that measures heat flow through seafloor sediments. Physical Oceanographers Determine the wave dynamics, currents and ocean-atmosphere interaction Their predictions of long-term climate trends became increasingly important as pollutants change the Earth’s atmosphere.

Who Studies the Earth’s Ocean? Marine Biologists Work with nature and distribution of marine organisms, the impact of oceanic and atmospheric pollutants on the organisms, the isolation of disease-fighting drugs from marine species, and the yields of fisheries Chemical Oceanographers Study the ocean’s dissolved solids and gases and the relationships of these components to the geology and biology of the ocean as a whole

Who Studies the Earth’s Ocean? Marine engineers Design and build oil platforms, ships, harbors, and other structures that enable us to exploit the ocean. Others that study the weather forecasting, ways to increase the safety of navigation on ships within the ocean, and people who study how to generate electricity

Marine Science Applies the Scientific Method to the ocean, the Earth of which it is a part, and the living organisms dependent on it. Most of the atoms (Hydrogen, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen) that make up the Earth and its inhabitants were formed within stars.

Earth and Ocean Stars form in the dusty spiral arms of galaxies and spend their lives changing hydrogen and helium to heavier elements. As they die, some stars eject these elements into space by cataclysmic explosions. The Sun and the planet Earth condensed from a cloud of dust and gas enriched by the recycled remnants of exploded stars.

Earth and Ocean However, our Ocean is not a remnant of that cloud. Most of the Ocean that was formed later was due to water vapor that was trapped in Earth’s outer layers that escaped to the surface through volcanic (outgassing) activity during the early development of Earth. As hot vapors rose , they condensed into clouds in the upper atmosphere. Research suggests that millions of tiny icy comets colliding with the Earth may also have contributed to the accumulating mass of water vapor, this ocean-to-be.

Earth and Ocean The Earth’s Surface was so hot that no water could settle there, and no sunlight could penetrate the thick clouds. After millions of years the upper clouds cooled enough for some of the outgassed water to form droplets. Hot rains fell toward the surface, became cooler, and water collected in the basins and dissolved minerals from the rocks. Some of the water evaporated, cooled, and fell again, and the Ocean World gradually accumulated. Life Originated in the Ocean soon after that and between the Ocean and The Earth they both have grown together.