- Silicon More than 90% of the Earth’s crust is composed of silicate minerals, making silicon the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust.
- Because of its strong affinity for oxygen, aluminium is rarely found in its elemental state.
- Calcium compounds can be found in a variety of minerals, including limestone (calcium carbonate), gypsum (calcium sulphate) and fluorite (calcium fluoride).
- Calcium compounds are widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries for supplementation.
Despite the fact that many maps of our planet go into considerable topographical detail on land, the oceans cover over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface.
Aerial mountain ranges, continental shelves, and trenches sunk deep into the Earth’s crust are hidden from view. We may be familiar with a few well-known ocean floor formations, but there’s a whole intricate “world” beneath the surface that’s just waiting to be discovered as reported by Visual Capitalist.
Planetary animation
The draining of the world’s oceans is simulated in this animation by planetary researcher James O’Donoghue of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA to quickly show the full extent of the Earth’s surface.
How deep is the ocean?
The topography of the Earth reaches 8,849 metres (29,032 feet) above sea level at the summit of Mt. Everest. However, it descends below sea level to a depth greater than Everest’s height.
The open ocean is called the pelagic zone, which can be broken down into five regions by depth:
- Epipelagic: 0–200m (sunlight zone). The majority of the ocean’s flora and creatures live in illuminated shallower waters.
- Mesopelagic: 200m–1,000m (twilight zone). Stretches from the point where 1% of surface light reaches to the point where it stops. It primarily consists of bacteria, with occasional larger species such as swordfish and squid thrown in for good measure.
- Bathypelagic depths range from 1,000 to 4,000 metres (midnight zone). Outside of a few bioluminescent critters and a few living plants, it’s pitch black. Anglerfish, squid, and sharks of all sizes, as well as a few huge animals such as a giant squid, reside here.
- Abyssopelagic: 4,000–6,000 m (abyssal zone). The abyssal zone, which reaches only above the ocean floor and contains little life due to extremely cold temperatures, enormous pressures, and utter darkness, has long been regarded to be the bottomless end of the sea.
- Hadopelagic: 6,000–11,000 metres (hadal zone). The hadal zone is the deepest portion of the ocean, named after Hades, the Greek deity of the underworld. It’s mostly found in trenches beneath the ground.
To put ocean depths into context, the bottom of the ocean is more than 2,000m greater than the peak of Mount Everest.
What will the oceans reveal?
For a long time, it was thought that the ocean floor was less understood than the Moon.
In 1960, a manned vehicle reached the Mariana Trench’s deepest known point, the Challenger Deep, almost 90 years after it was first documented in 1872.
The animation by O’Donoghue demonstrates how much detail we’ve been missing.
The Earth’s continental shelves, which form fast, are the first easily observable feature.
Mid-ocean ridges appear between 2,000 and 3,000 metres deep and run the length of the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
Who knows what else we’ll find beneath the waters as satellite and image technology improves and aquatic mapping missions become more feasible.
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Source: Visual Capitalist
