Book 2, Question 132

Why Are Oceans So Big?

If you look at a globe, most of what you see is blue. That blue is ocean! Most of Earth wears water! About seven tenths of Earth is ocean.

From the book

Page from A Million Whys Book 2

From biggest to smallest, the five oceans are the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic.
On average, the ocean is a little over two miles deep.
In the Mariana Trench, about 200 miles southwest of Guam, the water is almost seven miles deep.
Earth's oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all the planet's water.
Chemical clues in ocean water suggest that most of it came from asteroids.
The Pacific Ocean is bigger than all the land on all the continents put together.
The Pacific holds almost twice as much water as the Atlantic.

Why is it called the Pacific Ocean?

Explorer Ferdinand Magellan named it in 1520 because the water was calm when he saw it. Pacific means peaceful.