40 Deeply Interesting Facts About Our Oceans

The U. S. Army secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the ocean, in at least 26 locations off both coasts. The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped because records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.

27. At 63,800,000 square miles, the Pacific Ocean is larger than all of Earth’s land area combined.

28. There is an intact cask of radioactive plutonium dioxide (part of radioisotope thermoelectric generator) on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean because Apollo 13 failed to land on the moon.

29. The area that is now the Mediterranean Sea was once dry, but about 5 million years ago the Atlantic Ocean poured through the Strait of Gibraltar at a rate 1000 times that of the Amazon, filling the Mediterranean Sea in about 2 years.

30. The Bermuda Triangle has as many disappearances as any other place in the ocean of a similar size and many of the mysteries attributed to it happened outside of the triangle.

Internet cables that cross the Atlantic Ocean on the seabed are only as thick as a Magic Marker Pen in deep seas. Sharks like chewing these cables though it’s not known why. Sharks can sense electromagnetic fields so they may be attracted to the current.

32. The Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic is the only ‘sea’ with no land borders but instead is surrounded by ocean currents. It is known for being incredibly clear and full of a particular type of floating seaweed.

33. In 1998, a Frenchman named Benoît Lecomte swam 3,716 miles across the entire Atlantic Ocean, from Massachusetts to France; a feat that took him a total of 73 days, 5 of which he was being followed by a great white shark.

34. The difference between inland seas and lakes is that inland seas are formed as the result of oceans spilling over onto land during warm geological periods.

35. Living in an area where you can see the ocean has been found to reduce psychological stress, even after controlling for factors such as income and neighborhood status.

In order to stay hydrated, sea snakes drink a thin layer of fresh water that collects on the surface of the ocean, called a “lense”, after rainstorms. They do not drink seawater as previously thought.

37. The largest volcano on Earth is named Tamu Massif. Located at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, it has the same surface as New Mexico, making it one of the largest volcanoes in the Solar System.

38. Jellyfish live in every ocean and have survived five mass extinctions, for possibly 700 million years or more, despite most of them lacking specialized digestive, osmoregulatory, central nervous, respiratory, or circulatory systems.

39. Fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets.

40. The $350 million drillship built in the early 1970’s by US billionaire, Howard Hughes, to collect ‘mineral riches’ from the ocean floor was actually a cover for the CIA that was used to lift a lost Soviet submarine, loaded with nuclear missiles, up from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, 3 miles deep.