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Maps exhibiting the world's oceanic waters. A continuous body of water encircling Earth, the World/Global Ocean is divided into a number of principal areas. Five oceanic divisions are usually recognized: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern/Antarctic; the last two listed are sometimes consolidated into the first three.
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.
The ocean zones can be grouped by light penetration into (from top to bottom): the photic zone, the mesopelagic zone and the aphotic deep ocean zone: The photic zone is defined to be "the depth at which light intensity is only 1% of the surface value". [12]: 36 This is usually up to a depth of approximately 200 m in the open ocean.
The western portion of the plate is occupied by Central America. The Cocos plate in the Pacific Ocean is subducted beneath the Caribbean plate, just off the western coast of Central America. This subduction forms the volcanoes of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc.
Bridge River Ocean – Ancient ocean between North America and the Insular Islands during the Mesozoic; Iapetus Ocean – Ocean that existed in the late Neoproterozoic and early Paleozoic eras; Central American Seaway – Body of water that once separated North America from South America; Goianides Ocean – Ocean in South America in Neoproterozoic
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to Oceanography.. Thermohaline circulation. Oceanography (from Ancient Greek ὠκεανός (ōkeanós) 'ocean' and γραφή (graphḗ) 'writing'), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology.
a type of marsh that is a transitional zone between land and an area, such as a slough, bay, or estuary, with salty or brackish water. Sea: a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, or a large, usually saline, lake that lacks a natural outlet such as the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea. In common usage, often synonymous with the ocean.
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.