Marine Protection

Seas are the waters of the Earth surrounding the continents and all are connected to each other. As opposed to the seas, lakes and rivers on land are called inland waters. Three quarters of waters and seas cover the Earth’s surface, and only barely a quarter is actually dry land. In that sense, our planet should rather be called Ocean!

This would be apt, as it is exactly the oceans that set the Earth apart from other planets in the solar system. Seen from outer space, we live on a blue planet. 97 percent (1370 million cubic kilometers) of the Earth’s waters are contained in the oceans, and only about 2 % is in the ice sheet of Greenland and Antarctica. The small remaining percentage includes lakes and rivers, and also the water content of the atmosphere.

The seas are the cradle of life

The oceans not only dwarf continents in size, but also in terms of highest and lowest points. The deepest precipice on land is the Grand Canyon (USA) with only 1,800 meters (1.1 miles), but in comparison with oceanic trenches, this is almost nothing.

The deepest point in our oceans is at 11,034 meters (6.86 miles) below sea level, in the Vityaz Trench, which is a part of the Mariana Trench (located East of the Philippines).

Even the biggest mountains on Earth, a mid-ocean ridge of a length of 60,000 km (approx. 37,300 miles) and a width of up to 4,000 m (approx. 2,500 miles) and stretching though all the three oceans, is actually not on land, but underwater. We should always remember that the seas are the cradle of life. It was there in the seas that from the simplest forms, life evolved, and stayed under water for the first three billion years.

Only about 400 millions of years ago did the first plants and animals conquered dry land. We are also reminded of the marine origins of humans by the gill arches and gill slits that human embryos possess for a short time in their development. Human foetuses grow in the amniotic sac, in a sac of membrane filled with liquid.

It was in the sea that the first molecules of oxygen were produced (as a side-product of photosynthesis), which made life on land possible in the first place and still provide the vital foundation for life on land. The oxygen production of marine plants lead to the creation of the ozone layer in the stratosphere (at an altitude of 15 to 50 km or 9 to 31 miles), which filters the ultraviolet radiation of the sun, and makes life possible on land.

Nobody knows exactly how many species there are living in our oceans, but it is estimated that the number may be as high as 10 million or more. Only 300,000 of these are scientifically described as we speak.