The Sea
Created | Updated Dec 1, 2003
The Sea. Also known as 'the ocean', 'the deep blue' and the 'blue yonder'. It can be described in one word: Wet
The sea covers the majority of the earth's surface and is home to many differnt forms of life. Made of salty water, it forms part of the water cycle and is used by humans for recreational activities such as swimming, sailing, diving, water-skiing, parasailing and snorkelling.
Commonly a bluey greeny greyish colour, it tends to reflect the colour of the sky above it and so on stormy overcast days will appear grey and sullen. In tropical destinations, it can appear a brilliant turquoise blue and be crystal clear, whilst in the more (miserable) climates it is generally murky and dark.
The aforementioned inhabitants of the sea include fish, eels, rays, octopus, jellyfish and various shrimp, crabs, lobster and unidentified wriggly things. Some are even able to survive at the bottom of the sea where there is no light, numbing cold and crushing temperatures. These creatures are usually the weirdest looking. The other animals, the ones living near the surface, are more pleasing to the eye and in many cases very beautiful with striking and colourful scales.
A large part of the human diet comes from the sea, as does a lot of popular fiction. The films Jaws and The Abyss, as well as stories of the Marie Celeste and the Bermuda Triangle serve to root the sea as a mysterious and frightening place in our consciousness.
The sea meets the land in gentle slopes called beaches, which can be sandy, shingle or just plain rocky. In warmer climates, further out from the shore there are living colonies called reefs. These are delicate ecosystems consisting of coral formations and the various creatures which use them for food or shelter. The largest of these is the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Australia which can be seen from space.
There is still a lot of the sea which is unexplored. It is said that we know more about the surface of the moon than the ocean floor, which shows how truly mindboggling it actually is if we can know more about a ball of rock up in space than a bit of water, but there you go. New things are being discovered all the time and advances in engineering mean that more humans will be able to journey into the depths in better submarines (waterproof tin cans) and find out what other really wild things there are down there.
The sea covers the majority of the earth's surface and is home to many differnt forms of life. Made of salty water, it forms part of the water cycle and is used by humans for recreational activities such as swimming, sailing, diving, water-skiing, parasailing and snorkelling.
Commonly a bluey greeny greyish colour, it tends to reflect the colour of the sky above it and so on stormy overcast days will appear grey and sullen. In tropical destinations, it can appear a brilliant turquoise blue and be crystal clear, whilst in the more (miserable) climates it is generally murky and dark.
The aforementioned inhabitants of the sea include fish, eels, rays, octopus, jellyfish and various shrimp, crabs, lobster and unidentified wriggly things. Some are even able to survive at the bottom of the sea where there is no light, numbing cold and crushing temperatures. These creatures are usually the weirdest looking. The other animals, the ones living near the surface, are more pleasing to the eye and in many cases very beautiful with striking and colourful scales.
A large part of the human diet comes from the sea, as does a lot of popular fiction. The films Jaws and The Abyss, as well as stories of the Marie Celeste and the Bermuda Triangle serve to root the sea as a mysterious and frightening place in our consciousness.
The sea meets the land in gentle slopes called beaches, which can be sandy, shingle or just plain rocky. In warmer climates, further out from the shore there are living colonies called reefs. These are delicate ecosystems consisting of coral formations and the various creatures which use them for food or shelter. The largest of these is the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Australia which can be seen from space.
There is still a lot of the sea which is unexplored. It is said that we know more about the surface of the moon than the ocean floor, which shows how truly mindboggling it actually is if we can know more about a ball of rock up in space than a bit of water, but there you go. New things are being discovered all the time and advances in engineering mean that more humans will be able to journey into the depths in better submarines (waterproof tin cans) and find out what other really wild things there are down there.
