Do You Know What is the Difference Between a Sea and Ocean?

Both the ocean and sea are large or vast waters-which account for 70 percent of total land area.

Even as they're waters, oceans and seas are different in many ways;

First, oceans are waters between the continents, such as Atlantic Ocean separating Africa from North/South America and Europe; Indian Ocean separating India from Africa, Pacific Ocean separating North and South America from Asia. Ocean floor is made up of dense basaltic rock, this is vast continuous body of water, which account for over two-thirds of earth area. The world has seven of these waters:

On the other hand, a sea is a narrow body of water; smaller in size to ocean. Generally, seas are very close to land or human habitation, and the sea floor is made up of light granite rock of the continent. A sea is mostly enclosed land of water, which could be bodies of waters as shown is this map. The Mediterranean Sea, otherwise known as the Great Sea is a body of water connecting Africa and southern Europe, this water connect twenty-three countries (in Africa, Europe, and Asia) and four territories.

Sea Within Sea; Not With Ocean

Another difference between sea and ocean is , a sea or seas can be found within another SEA as the case with Mediterranean Sea. Within the Mediterranean Sea, they're other seas, such as Adriatic Sea, Sea of Crete, Ligurian Sea, Ionian Sea, Sea of Sicily, Alboran Sea, Balearic Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, Aegean Sea, Myrton Sea, Levantine Sea, Gulf of Lion, Libyan Sea and many more. In the Black Sea, a strait connects it with anorher Sea of Azov. This is a common feature among the seas around the but not with oceans. Coming to Africa, the Red Sea another body of water through Strait of Mandeb is connected to Gulf of Aden, then to Indian Ocean.

Depth: Oceans are deeper than seas, although, sea is deep by its own standards and respect; however, oceans are deeper; average depth of an ocean is put at 3.5 kilometers, which means, certain part of oceans could be deeper beyond 3.5 kilometers stretch. In many instances, it is always said, any part of the ocean with a-200-meter-depth, is nothing, but a deep sea. It may surprise you to know that-there are underwater mountains, plains and hills; of the two highest mountains in the world- Mounts Everest and Kilimanjaro-with 8,848 and 5865 meters-none equal in height with mountains in the Oceans, also with mountains in the seas.

An average ocean depth is 10,924 meters, Arctic, the smallest ocean has average depth of 5625 meters, while deepest sea-the Caribbean Sea, also the largest of all the seas, has a depth of 6946 meters.

Coverage or Area: The areas covered by Oceans far greater than the seas; even where there are multiple of seas or bodies of seas within same geographical area, Ocean or oceans is/are larger. World water covers a total area of 361,900,000 square kilometers holding 1.35 billion cubic of kilometers of water. Of the seven oceans-Pacific is the largest holding about 60,060,000 square kilometers of water; Arctic, the smallest ocean, holds-5,427,000 square kilometer; while the Mediterranean Sea hold-just-1,144,000 square kilometers of water.

Ocean Resources: Another difference between the sea and ocean is that-World Oceans hold enormous resources, which mankind will never exhaust. The amount of world wealth-especially the HYDROCARBON PRODUCT in the oceans is stupendous-extremely astonishing. Since industrial revolution of mid-19th century, records or history shows that about 147 billion tons of oil have been pumped out for human consumption from world reserve; half of it, in the past 20 years. As of today, the conservative world reserve, which is reachable or explorable by modern technology is put at 157 billion tons, of this amount, 26 percent or 41 billion tons buried under ocean bed. In 2007, 1.4 billion tons of oil sourced from the ocean; representing 37 percent of annual production.

On natural Gas, the oceans of the world harbor the chunk of world reserves-Middle East harbors considerably more gas in the "ocean floor" than any region; in the lead, is the South Pars/North Dome Oil field between Iran and Qatar. This is the world largest natural gas and condensate jointly owned by Iran and Qatar.

The International Energy Agency say, it holds 50.97 trillion cubic meters (1800 trillion cubic feet) of In-situ gas and some 50 billion barrels of condensate with volume equivalent 360 billion barrels of oil, and 310 billion barrels of equivalent of gas and 50 billion of bbl of condensate. This is the world largest conventional Hydrocarbon Accumulative-bigger than Ghawar Oil field, which holds 170 billion barrels of original oil in place.

South Pars/North Dome-Gas Condensate Field-Jointly Owned by Iran and Qatar.

Finally, Animals in Oceans and Seas Different:

Marine life in the seas are somehow different from those in the oceans-In oceans, we have microscopic organisms, planktons, bacteria, shrimps, big mammals-whale, sharks, dolphins and many more. In the sea, we have both aquatic and amphibian; animals that live in the water and on the land. And because light can penetrate into the seawater than ocean water, it allows photosynthesis.

~ Silas O. Abayomi, Scholar, Researcher, Publisher, Mediator, Historian (2008-present)