7 hidden facts about Oceans that you do not know!

There must be so many secrets that the oceans still hold, and we are yet to unveil them.

Published: May 29, 2015 9:00 AM IST

By Mudabbir Ahmad

7 hidden facts about Oceans that you do not know!

It is believed that we humans have studied and explored the space three times more than we have done with our oceans. There must be so many secrets that the oceans still hold, and we are yet to unveil them. Just to give you an idea on how far behind we are in the field of studying oceans, here are 7 facts about oceans that you probably did not know. (Read: Top 4 facts about toilets you must know)

1. The average ocean depth is 2.5 miles (4 km). The deepest point in any ocean is the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean which is nearly 7 miles or 11 km deep. There are shallower regions too, like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

2. The unexplored and untapped potential of oceans can be understood by the fact that if we could capture just 0.1% of the ocean’s kinetic energy caused by tides, we could satisfy the current global energy demand 5 times over! But the reality is that there is currently no such mechanism, and almost 95% of the oceans remain unexplored.

3. Oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth’s surface like we all know, but we never seem to fully comprehend the vastness of oceans. To give you some idea of it, here is a fact- the Atlantic Ocean is big enough to let every person in the US have their own cubic kilometer in it. And the Atlantic is not even the largest ocean in the world!

4. We humans keep looking for minerals, fossils and other precious elements in the Earth’s crust, and over land mostly. Oceans are mostly explored for oil. But did you know that oceans also contain some very precious elements in very large quantities? In fact, the world’s oceans contain nearly 20 million tons of gold!

5. It is not easy to go underwater and explore the ocean bed. At the ocean’s deepest point, the water pressure is the equivalent of having 50 jumbo jets piled on top of you.

6. Oceans are very important for our survival. In fact, 70% of the oxygen we breathe are produced by the oceans. But oceans are being polluted at enormous rates. 10,000 shipping containers are lost at sea each year and 10% of those hold toxic chemicals which may leak into the ocean. An example of the careless attitude of humans towards oceans is that the U.S. Army admitted it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agents into the ocean from 1944 to 1970, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste.

7. A fun fact for those conspiracy hungry people who think Bermuda Triangle has a wormhole or something in there somewhere- the Bermuda Triangle has as many ship and plane disappearances as any other region of the ocean! Image Credit: Getty images

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