The next time you look at a map of the world, take the time to look at the large areas of oceans that have been mapped out. Some of the areas are enormous. The Pacific Ocean for example, covers an area of over 166 million square kilometres and at its widest point, it stretches nearly half way around the Earth. This record-breaking ocean is also the deepest of our oceans, reaching an incredible 11,034m deep. If you can't imagine how deep that could be - Mount Everest the world's highest mountain - is a teeny tiny 8,848m high by comparison!
World map - NASA
It's estimated that there is over one million million million tonnes of seawater on our planet. That's a lot isn't it? But because there is so much seawater, sloshing about our planet, it would be very easy to think that it was one of the simplest things around. You might know that life on Earth began in our oceans and now they are home to an amazing collection of plants and animal species. But, seawater has a lot of hidden qualities that might surprise you.
Water and Oceans
