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The major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria. The principal divisions (in descending order of area) are the: Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern (Antarctic) Ocean, and Arctic Ocean.
The ocean is a major driver of Earth's water cycle. Ocean water represents the largest body of water within the global water cycle (oceans contain 97% of Earth's water). Evaporation from the ocean moves water into the atmosphere to later rain back down onto land and the ocean. [69] Oceans have a significant effect on the biosphere.
The oceanic zone is typically defined as the area of the ocean lying beyond the continental shelf (e.g. the neritic zone), but operationally is often referred to as beginning where the water depths drop to below 200 metres (660 ft), seaward from the coast into the open ocean with its pelagic zone.
Ocean – the four to seven largest named bodies of water in the World Ocean, all of which have "Ocean" in the name (see: Borders of the oceans for details). Sea has several definitions: [a] A division of an ocean, delineated by landforms, [6] currents (e.g., Sargasso Sea), or specific latitude or longitude boundaries. This includes but is not ...
The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere and is thereby essential to life on Earth. The ocean influences climate and weather patterns, the carbon cycle, and the water cycle by acting as a huge heat reservoir. (Full article...) Waves in Pacifica, California. A sea is a large body of salt water.
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica ) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
World map of the five-ocean model with approximate boundaries. This list of countries which border two or more oceans includes both sovereign states and dependencies, provided the same contiguous territory borders on more than one of the five named oceans, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic. [1]
Nevertheless, and since ocean basins are interconnected, many oceanographers prefer to refer to one single ocean basin instead of multiple ones. Older references (e.g., Littlehales 1930) [ 4 ] consider the oceanic basins to be the complement to the continents , with erosion dominating the latter, and the sediments so derived ending up in the ...