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Diving in Devil’s Ear, Florida, 1998
(Photograph by Wes Skiles)
Plant tannins from the Santa Fe River mixed with diamond-clear aquifer waters make this cave entrance in Florida’s Ginnie Spring appear engulfed in flames. The entrance, called Devil’s Ear, is just one portal of hundreds in northern Florida leading to a watery underworld that explorers are slowly bringing to light.
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The great blue hole of Belize is legendary. People come from all over to enjoy this beautiful and unique dive location. It was formed during the Ice Age after the collapse of the roof of a system of calcareous caves. It is 984 ft across and 407 ft deep. The analysis of stalactites found in Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000, 66,000, 60,000, and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the caves were flooded. The Great Blue Hole is a part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the world’s oceans, and the lowest elevation of the surface of the Earth’s crust. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands. It reaches a maximum-known depth of about 10.91 kilometers or 6.78 miles (over 35,000 feet) at the Challenger Deep, a small slot-shaped valley in its floor at its southern end named after the British survey ship Challenger II, which discovered this deepest location in 1951. If Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth at 8,848 meters (29,029 ft), was set in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, there would be 2,076 metres (6,811 ft) of water left above it.
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simple map illustrating the continents and oceans
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The World’s Oceans:
Oceans cover about 70% of planet Earth’s surface. Earth is at just the right distance from the sun so that water can be liquid at the surface. Planets closer to the sun have water mainly as vapor and planets farther away from the sun have water mainly as ice. Earth has all three forms of water - vapor, liquid, and solid. Because of this Earth is a unique planet and the oceans are a unique (and extremely important) part of its makeup.
The earth has four main oceans;
the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian, and the Arctic Ocean. Some people consider the southern portion of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans as another ocean they call the Antarctic (or Southern) Ocean but since there is no easily defined land mass surrounding the Antarctic Ocean it is usually not mentioned in geography.
The Atlantic Ocean:
The Atlantic Ocean is bounded by America on its western side and Europe/Africa on its eastern side. The part of the ocean north of the equator is often called the North Atlantic and the part south of the equator is called the South Atlantic. These distinctions are important as each of these has a distinctively different circulation pattern.
The Pacific Ocean:
The Pacific Ocean is bounded by Asia/Australia on its western side and America on its eastern side. The part of the ocean north of the equator is often called the North Pacific and the part south of the equator is called the South Pacific. These distinctions are important as each of these has a distinctively different circulation pattern just like the Atlantic Ocean.
The Indian Ocean:
The Indian Ocean is bounded by Africa on its western side and Australia on its eastern side. Most of Indian Ocean is below the equator and thus in the southern hemisphere.
The Arctic Ocean:
The Arctic Ocean is at the center of a north polar view of planet Earth. It is almost entirely surrounded by Canada, Alaska, Russia, Scandinavia, and Greenland. The North Pacific connects with the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Sea and Bering Strait - a rather small opening. The North Atlantic connects with the Arctic Ocean through the area between Greenland and Scandinavia - a rather large opening. This is why there are so many more icebergs in the North Atlantic as compared to the North Pacific. Most of the Arctic icebergs floating near the North Pacific become grounded before they get through the Bering Strait, but in the North Atlantic many of these icebergs float into the the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic and may cause problems. The sinking of the Titanic was from one such iceberg, and since that catastrophic incident there has been a North Atlantic Ice Patrol with warnings to ships in the areas where there may be dangerous icebergs. There is no such thing (or need for it) in the North Pacific simply because of its geography.
