Did you know that oceans and seas actually all form part of one continuous mass of seawater? If you look at a map of the world you will notice that all the oceans and the seas are actually joined. So how do you distinguish between an ocean and a sea? Seas are smaller than oceans and are partly enclosed by land.

There are five oceans and several dozen seas. The five oceans are the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian, the Arctic and the Southern. The largest and deepest ocean is the Pacific which covers 165 million square kilometres, almost one-third of the Earth’s surface. It is actually larger than all the continents put together! The second largest is the Atlantic Ocean. The smallest and coldest one is the Arctic Ocean.

Did you know that there are mountains, volcanoes, and deep trenches in the ocean? The

deepest trench is the Mariana Trench, which is 11,033 metres deep, that is six times deeper than the Grand Canyon!!

The world’s longest mountain chain is more than 50,000km long and is also found underwater. This is the mid-ocean ridge, and extends from the Arctic Ocean, down the centre of the Atlantic, into the Pacific Ocean. It is four times longer than the Andes, the Rockies and the Himalayas put together.

The tallest mountain on Earth stands 33,465 feet tall and extends from the ocean floor to above water. This is Mauna Kea, an inactive volcanic island in Hawaii. Ninety per cent of all volcanic activities on Earth actually occur in the oceans.