Whatever your preferred holiday destination this Festive Season, we bet a trip to the ocean is one of them.
Whether it is a trip on a luxurious boat, a fishing adventure with family and friends or vacation with your wife and kids, here are some facts you might find interesting.
Did you know (Sources: www.factslides.com and marinebio.com):
- The average ocean depth is 4km
- Six billion kg of garbage are dumped into the ocean every year. Most of it is plastic
- Europe and Africa are separated by 14,3 km of ocean and there are talks of creating the longest bridge ever
- The world’s oceans contain nearly 20 million tons of gold
- At the ocean’s deepest point, the water pressure is the equivalent of having 50 jumbo jets piled on top of you
- 70 per cent of the oxygen we breathe are produced by the oceans
- 95 per cent of the underwater world remains unexplored
- It’s okay to pee in the ocean since 95 per cent of urine is water and the nitrogen in urea is used to feed ocean plants
- The oceans cover 71 per cent (and rising) of the Earth’s surface and contain 97 per cent of the Earth’s water. Less than one per cent is fresh water, and 2 to 3 per cent is contained in glaciers and ice caps (and is decreasing)
- The speed of sound in water is 1 435 m/sec – nearly five times faster than the speed of sound in air
- The Pacific Ocean, the world’s largest water body, occupies a third of the Earth’s surface. The Pacific contains about 25 000 islands (more than the total number in the rest of the world’s oceans combined), almost all of which are found south of the equator. The Pacific covers an area of 179.7 million sq km
- The sea level has risen with an average of 10-25 cm over the past 100 years and scientists expect this rate to increase
- A mouthful of seawater may contain millions of bacterial cells, hundreds of thousands of phytoplankton and tens of thousands of zooplankton
- Swordfish and marlin are the fastest fish in the ocean reaching speeds up to 121kph in quick bursts; bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) may reach sustained speeds up to 90kph
- Many fish can change sex during the course of their lives. Others, especially rare deep-sea fish, have both male and female sex organs
• An estimated 50 to 80 per cent of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99 per cent of the living space on the planet. Less than 10 per cent of that space has been explored by humans. 85 per cent of the area and 90 per cent of the volume constitute the dark, cold environment we call the deep sea. The average depth of the ocean is 3 795 m. The average height of the land is 840m.
