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WATER COVERING THE EARTH:
The earth's total allotment of water has a volume of about 344 million cubic miles:

  • 315 million cubic miles (93%) is sea water!
  • 9 million cubic miles (2.5%) is in aquifers deep below the earth's surface.
  • 7 million cubic miles (2%) is frozen in polar ice caps.
  • 53,000 cubic miles of water pass through the planet's lakes and streams.
  • 4,000 cubic miles of water is atmospheric moisture.
  • 3,400 cubic miles of water are locked within the bodies of living things.

LARGEST/LONGEST RIVER:

  • The Missouri River is about 2,540 miles long, making it the longest river in North America.
  • The Nile is the longest river in the world at 4,132 miles as it travels northward from its remote headwaters in Burundi to the Mediterranean Sea.
  • The 8 LONGEST rivers in the U.S. are (in descending order) Missouri, Mississippi, Yukon, St. Lawrence (if you count the Great Lakes and its headwaters as one system), Rio Grande, Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio.
  • The 8 LARGEST rivers in the U.S., based on volume, are (in descending order) Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Ohio, Columbia, Yukon, Missouri, Tennessee, Mobile.
  • More water flows over Niagara Falls every year than over any other falls on earth.

6 LARGEST RIVERS IN THE WORLD

  • Nile (Africa): 4,132 miles
  • Amazon (South America): 4,087 miles
  • Yangtze (Asia): 3,915 miles
  • Huang He, aka Yellow (Asia): 3,395 miles
  • Parana (South America): 3,032 miles
  • Congo (Africa): 2,900 mile

6 LARGEST RIVERS IN THE US:

  • Missouri: 2,540 miles
  • Mississippi: 2,340 miles
  • Yukon: 1,980 miles
  • Rio Grande: 1,900 miles
  • St. Lawrence: 1,900 miles
  • Colorado: 1,450 miles

LARGEST OCEAN:

  • The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the world's five oceans (followed by the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Arctic Ocean)
  • The Pacific Ocean total: 64 million square miles (166 million square kilometers) and is twice the size of the Atlantic Ocean, and occupies nearly a third of the surface of the Earthmore than the area of all the Earth's land.
  • The Pacific Ocean includes Bali Sea, Bering Sea, Bering Strait, Coral Sea, East China Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Gulf of Tonkin, Philippine Sea, Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, South China Sea, Tasman Sea, and other tributary water bodies.
  • The Pacific Ocean occupies nearly a third of the surface of the Earth - larger than the total land area of the world.
  • The Pacific Ocean's total coastline: 135,663 km.

The average depths of the oceans:

  • the Arctic Ocean is 1,038 meters (3,407 feet) deep
  • the Indian Ocean is 3,872 meters (12,740 feet) deep
  • the Atlantic Ocean is 3,872 meters (12,254 feet) deep
  • the Pacific Ocean is 4,188 meters (13,740 feet) deep

The deepest point in the oceans:

  • Arctic Ocean's Eurasian Basin at 5,450 meters (17,881 feet) deep
  • Indian Ocean's Java Trench at 7,725 meters (25,344 feet) deep
  • Atlantic Ocean's Puerto Rico Trench at 8,648 meters (28,374 feet) deep
  • Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench at 11,033 meters (36,201 feet) deep

The Mariana Trench, stretching for more than 1,580 miles (2,550 km) with a mean width of 43 miles (69 km) in the Pacific Ocean- just east of the 14 Mariana Islands ( near Japan and 210 miles southwest of Guam)- is the deepest part of the oceans and the deepest location of the earth.

The deepest point of the Mariana Trench is called The Challenger Deep, named after the British exploration vessel HMS Challenger II, which pinpointed the deep water off the Marianas Islands in 1951. In 1960 the US Navy sent a mini-submarine (a manned submersible) down the Marianas trench and touched bottom at 35,813 ft/10,915m- visualize them having had nearly seven miles/11km of water above them, as they rested on the bottom. ?And to better illustrate the actual depth of the Mariana Trench, consider the following; if Mount Everest, which is the tallest point on earth at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet), were set in the Mariana Trench, there would still be 2,183 meters (7,166 feet) (over 1 mile) of water left on top of it.

The Mariana Trench is often used as a North-South passage by submarines as it is part of a long system of trenches that circle the Pacific Ocean, connected with the Japan and Kuril Trenches.

SALINITY:

  • The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
  • The water in the Great Salt Lake of Utah is more than four times as salty as any ocean.
  • The saltiest ocean is the Indian Ocean.
  • Most of the earth's surface water is permanently frozen or salty.

FRESH WATER:

  • The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.
  • The Great Lakes contain the largest supply of freshwater in the world, holding about 18% of the world's total freshwater and about 90% of the United States' total freshwater.
  • Combined, the lakes cover an area of over 94,000 square miles (245,000 square kilometers) and contain 5,400 cubic miles (23,000 cubic kilometers) of water.
  • The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water.
  • The Great Lakes have a combined area of 94,230 square miles - larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont combined.
  • If all the water in the Great Lakes was spread evenly across the continental U.S., the ground would be covered with almost 10 feet of water.
  • The water Lake Baikal- in southeastern Siberia- holds makes up 20% of the fresh surface water in the world.
  • If all the world's water were fit into a gallon jug, the fresh water available for us to use would equal only about one tablespoon.

WATER AND GLACIER COVERING THE EARTH:

  • About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.
  • 11.4% of the global land cover is snow and ice.
  • .9% of the global land cover is wetland.
  • Antarcticas ice fields contain more than 60 percent of the worlds supply of fresh water, an amount equivalent to 60 years of global precipitation. Fresh water is Antarcticas most abundant and accessible resource. Each year Antarctica produces some 5,000 icebergs, almost seven times as many as the Arctic and Greenland combined. Antarctic bergs are also much bigger than their northern cousins, each averaging about one million tons of pure fresh water.
  • Water covers nearly three-fourths of the earth's surface.
  • Most of the earth's surface water is permanently frozen or salty.

KILOMETERS/MILES OF TROPICAL REEFS:
Indonesia, followed by Australia and the Philippines are the largest reef nations. France is in fourth, with 14,280 sq km of reefs located in its overseas territories. The UK- with more coral than the USA- is the 12th largest reef nation, having over 5,500 sq km of coral reefs (2% of the world total), all of which are located in its overseas territories.

ODD FACTS ABOUT THE OCEAN'S CREATURES:

  • Often referred to as the "rainforests of the oceans," coral reefs host an extraordinary variety of marine plants and animals (perhaps up to 2 million) including one quarter of all marine fish species. It has been estimated that so far only about 10% of these species have been described by scientists. The World Atlas of Coral Reefs contains the latest information on coral biodiversity. The most diverse region of the world for coral reefs is centered on the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, with between 500 and 600 species of coral in each of these countries.
  • One fifth of the world's freshwater fish -- 2,000 of 10,000 species identified -- are endangered, vulnerable, or extinct. In North America, the continent most studied, 67% of all mussels, 51% of crayfish, 40% of amphibians, 37% of fish, and 75% of freshwater mollusks are rare, imperiled, or already gone.
  • At least 123 freshwater species became extinct during the 20th century. These include 79 invertebrates, 40 fishes, and 4 amphibians. (There may well have been other species that were never identified.)
  • Freshwater animals are disappearing five times faster than land animals.
  • Lake Malawi (Africa) contains the largest number of fish species of any lake in the world, probably over 500 from ten families.
  • The only continent without reptiles or snakes is Antarctica.

Information Provided By:
US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
NOAA MARINE MAMMAL LABORATORY