140 Things in the Ocean

John Spacey, October 26, 2021

The ocean is an interconnected body of water that covers approximately 70.8% of the Earth's surface. As the dominant feature of the planet that has an average depth of 2.29 miles, the ocean is mostly unexplored and mysterious. For example, it is thought to have around 2 million species of organism but only about 230,000 of these have been identified. The following are common examples of things, life and phenomenon found in the ocean.

Aircraft Wrecks	Algae
Aquatic Insects	Artificial Islands
Artificial Reefs	Atolls
Bacteria	Barnacles
Bays	Beaches
Bioluminescence	Boat Drones (Robotic Boats)
Bridges	Buoys
Clams	Coastal Infrastructure
Coastlines	Conch / Sea Snails
Continental Fault Lines	Continental Shelf
Coral	Crabs
Crustaceans	Currents
Cuttlefish	Divers
Docks	Dolphins
Driftwood	Dugongs
Eddies	Eels
Estuaries	Fish
Fishing Debris	Floating Islands
Floating Solar Panels	Floating Structures
Fossils	Fungi
Garbage Patches	Ghostnets
Giant Squid / Colossal Squid	Hurricanes
Hydrothermal Vents	Icebergs
Icebreakers	Islands
Isopods	Jellyfish
Kelp / Kelp Forests	Krill
Lagoons	Lobster
Manatee	Mangroves
Manta Ray	Marine Debris
Marine Iguana	Marine Microbes
Messages in Bottles	Meteorites
Mollusks	Nanoplastics
Ocean Plastic	Ocras
Octopuses	Offshore Aquaculture (Ocean Fish Farms)
Offshore Wind Farms	Oil Platforms
Organic Debris (e.g. Floating Coconuts)	Oysters
Penguins	Plankton
Polar Bears	Porpoises
Ports	Protozoa
Reefs	Ridges
Rocks	Rogue Waves
Sailboats / Boats	Salt Water
Saltwater Crocodiles	Sand
Sea Caves	Sea Ice
Sea Otters	Sea Snakes
Sea Wasps	Seabirds
Seagrass	Seagulls
Seahorses	Seals
Seas	Seaweed
Sediment	Sharks
Shells	Ship Graveyards
Shipping Containers Lost at Sea	Ships
Shipwrecks	Shrimp
Space Junk (Spacecraft Cemetery)	Sponges
Squid	Stingray
Submarine Cables	Submarine Canyons
Submarine Pipelines	Submarine-launched Nuclear Missiles
Submarines	Sunken Cities (Underwater Ruins)
Surfers	Tarpons
Tidal Turbines	Tide Pools
Tides	Torpedoes
Trenches	Tridents
Tsunami	Turtles
Undersea Rivers	Undersea Tunnels
Underwater Caves	Underwater Statues
Underwater Volcanoes	Urchin
Viruses	Water Pollution
Waterspouts	Wave Power Devices
Waves	Whales
Whirlpools	Worms

An eddy is a circular current that resembles a small whirlpool.

Ghostnets are nets that have been discarded or lost in the ocean by fishing operations.

The Earth has five oceans known as the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern oceans. These are known collectively as the ocean, sea, great ocean or world ocean.

The five oceans were historically divided into the "Seven Seas" these are the Arctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific and Southern oceans.

About 97% of the world's water is contained in oceans.

The word ocean comes from Oceanus, an Ancient Greek god that was considered a personification of the river that the Ancient Greeks believed circled the world. Oceanus was a Titan who had 3,000 daughters who were goddess-nymphs who protected the Earth's fresh water including clouds, rivers and springs.

The are 234,512 miles, or 377,412 kilometers, of ocean coastline on Earth.

The average depth of the oceans is about 2.29 miles or 3.69 kilometers.

The average salinity of the ocean is around 34.7‰.

The salinity of warm tropical parts of the ocean are as much as 37% and the salinity of its cold polar waters is as low as 28%.

There are an estimated 3 million shipwrecks on the ocean floor.

Viruses are the most abundant life form in the oceans.

Around a billion marine microbes live in a single liter (34 ounces) of water.

Microbes in the ocean supply more than half of the oxygen found in the atmosphere.

The 2017 United Nations Ocean Conference estimated that the oceans might contain more plastic than fish by weight by the year 2050.

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References

Hallwood, Paul, and Thomas J. Miceli. "Murky waters: The law and economics of salvaging historic shipwrecks." The Journal of Legal Studies 35.2 (2006): 285-302.