Today is World Oceans Day

[n2doc]

By Brett Israel, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer
posted: 08 June 2010 08:21 am ET


NEW YORK - The ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface, but on this World Oceans Day (June 8, 2010) scientists say they still know shockingly little about the mysterious deep blue sea.

With 95 percent of the ocean unmapped, more is known about the moon's surface than the ocean depths, said aquatic filmmaker Fabien Cousteau, grandson of ocean diving pioneer Jacque Cousteau. In fact,12 men have stepped foot on the moon, but only two have been to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean at roughly 7 miles (11 kilometers) deep.

The few forays to the bottom of the ocean have revealed that "we were wrong about life on Earth," said David Guggenheim of the Ocean Foundation, speaking Friday at the World Science Festival here. As these deep-sea expeditions have revealed, life on Earth can even exist miles below the ocean's surface and under the most extreme conditions. Scientists hope that in the coming years new technologies that are under development may allow man to dive deeper and probe further into the ocean abyss — solving some major mysteries about our own planet.


more
http://www.livescience.com/environment/world-oceans-day-100608.html


Too bad we are busy trying to turn them into a toxic wasteland.