Tag: circulation of ocean water

Over millions of years of rain, rivers and streams have washed over rocks containing the compound Sodium Chloride and carried it into the seas and oceans.

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content in a body of water. Salinity is an important factor in determining many aspects of the chemistry of natural waters and of biological processes within it, and is a thermodynamic state variable that, along with temperature and pressure, governs physical characteristics like the density and heat capacity of the water.

The Oceanic relief features are in the form of mountains, basins, plateaus, ridges, canyons and trenches beneath the ocean water. These forms are called Submarine Relief.

Factors affecting salinity in surface layers of ocean include:

1. The salinity of water in the surface layer of oceans depends mainly on evaporation and precipitation.
2. Surface salinity is greatly influenced in coastal regions by the fresh water flow from rivers, and in polar regions by the processes of freezing and thawing of ice.
3. Wind, also influences salinity of an area by transferring water to other areas.
4. The ocean currents contribute to the salinity variations.
5. Salinity, temperature and density of water are interrelated. Hence, any change in the temperature or density influences the salinity of an area.

The surface of the planet is approximately 71% water and contains (5) five oceans, including the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern. Their borders are indicated on the world image (above) in varied shades of blue. These were divided by the Geographers who were exploring the world.

Although many factors combine to influence weather, the four main ones are solar radiation, the amount of which changes with Earth's tilt, orbital distance from the sun and latitude, temperature, air pressure and the abundance of water.

Panthalassa was the superocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea. A superocean is an ocean that surrounds a supercontinent. It is less commonly defined as any ocean larger than the current Pacific Ocean. The movement of Earth's tectonic plates formed Pangaea and ultimately broke it apart. Pangaea existed during the Permian and Triassic geological time periods, which were times of great change.

After 2000m, the temperature of the seawater is uniform everywhere. It is around $4^0C$ according to depth. And therefore, the water of greater depths does not freeze.

Precipitation is the main source of potable water available of the earth. Snow, hailstones, rainfall, are the major forms of precipitation.

Oceans provided abundant food resources like fish and salt.