Ocean

Oceans are big wet blue things that cover quite a lot of the earth. They are very salty, extremely polluted and contain many delicious edibles.
==History==
Oceans formed over the course of millions of years after the shiny new Earth cooled enough for water to settle on its surface and to fill up the shallower bits. As the crust drifted about, continents and supercontinents formed and re-formed; the spaces in between these land masses would become individual seas. Pangaea, the most recently-formed of the supercontinents, split up between 250 and 150 million years ago, dividing the large Tethys ocean into several smaller oceans. The Atlantic Ocean is the youngest of these; as measured by the record of changes in the magnetic field in the rocks below it — it is thought to date back less than a hundred million years.
In historic times, the oceans posed an insurmountable barrier to most cultures. During the Middle Ages, better shipbuilding techniques finally enabled regular and relatively safe crossings. As a result, five or six small countries on the northeastern Atlantic coastPortugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Britain; plus optionally Denmark. Or Sweden. Or Courland. Plus maybe Belgium. succeeded in carving up most of the world into a few massive "sea-borne" empires, the consequences of which remain readily apparent today.
According to some Young-Earthers, the amount of salt in the oceans suggests that seas formed up to 62 million years ago.A young Earth indeed. - "Even ignoring the effect of the biblical Flood and assuming zero starting salinity and all rates of input and removal so as to maximize the time taken to accumulate all the salt, the maximum age of the oceans, 62 million years, is less than 1/50 of the age evolutionists claim for the oceans. This suggests that the age of the earth is radically less also.
Estimating the ocean’s age - "Granting the most generous assumptions to evolutionists, Austin and Humphreys calculated that the ocean must be less than 62 million years old. It's important to stress that this is not the actual age, but a maximum age. That is, this evidence is consistent with any age up to 62 million years, including the biblical age of about 6,000 years."
The Young-Earthers make their argument based on a starting point of zero salt. False assumption — the oceans actually once had more salt than they have today. This is due to the fact that a large amount of salt is deposited on the shore when seawater evaporates outside of the ocean — the first great lowering of salinity occurred in the late Precambrian - 1 billion to 541 million years ago - when huge amounts of salt were deposited in Neoproterozoic evaporite basins. These deposits result in a mineral known as "evaporite".
ScienceDirect
 
If you like bikes, you'll love the long-term global ocean salinity cycle.
 
In other evidence for the extreme age of the oceans, not long after they formed, iron-manganese nodules started forming, incredibly slowly: see [[Evidence against a recent creation#Iron-manganese nodule growth: >1,000,000|here]] for more information.
==Life==
The greatest variety of life occurs in coral reefs, but the vast open ocean has the most productivity. 
There are plenty of fish in the sea - the oceans contain more than (insert really big number here) species. They also teem with plant life and invertebrate animals, and many species of aquatic mammal, including dolphins and whales. Most of the really weird stuff, however, is in the deep sea trenches.Weird stuff. From Greenpeace. It's just a video, so just open it. The deepest recorded sea trench is the Mariana Trench which is thought to be roughly just under 11,000 m, or about 36,000 ft.
==Non-conservation==
The oceans have also provided food for seagoing communities (a resource currently being depleted faster than it can be replaced), and are also used as a huge rubbish dump. Both of these may well have a permanent effect on sea life — it is possible that jellyfish may become the sea's dominant life form after all the fish have been eaten or choke on plastic bags.Invasion of the jellyfish
Whales are probably the most famous example of overfishing (overmammaling?). The result is this:
Extinct
Critically Endangered
Endangered
Vulnerable
Lower Risk 
(Conservation Dependent)
Lower risk 
(Near Threatened)
Lower Risk 
(Least Concern)
None*
* Blue whale (Antarctic)http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/41713/all
* Gray whale (Northwest Pacific)http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/8099/all
* Blue whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/details/2477
* Fin whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/2478/summ
* North Pacific right whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/41711/summ
* North Atlantic right whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/41712/summ
* Sei whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/2475/summ
* Belugahttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/6335/summ
* Blue whalemusculus subspecies (Atlantic)http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/2483/all
* Sperm whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/41755/summ
* Antarctic minke whale
* Arnoux's beaked whale
* Baird's beaked whale
* Blue whale (North Pacific)http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/2482/all
* Bowhead whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/2467/summ
* Gray whale(Northeast Pacific)http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/8098/all
* Northern bottlenose whale
* Southern bottlenose whale
* Short-finned pilot whale
* Southern right whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/8153/summ
* Minke whalehttp://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/cetacean_table_for_website.pdf
* Dwarf sperm whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/11048/summ
* Pygmy right whale
* Long-finned pilot whale
* Humpback whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/13006/summ
* Pygmy sperm whalehttp://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/11047/summ
* Melon-headed whale
* Gray whale (species)
* The Atlantic population of gray whales went extinct in the late-17th century. It is not listed as a part of IUCN's red list.Eschrichtius robustus (Grey whale) Geographic Range IUCN Red list of threatened species
Despite the mess whaling made of the marine mammal population, people still do it (even though commercial whaling is banned by international law). As of 1987, Japan has been whaling for "scientific purposes", which apparently include distributing the meat of what may be the second most intelligent species on Earth to school children for lunch, and (one can safely assume) resurrecting commercial whaling.Greenpeace
==Relevance to global warming==
Oceans store 90% of the "additional" energy retained by the greenhouse effect. Even years that are not "hottest on record" for surface temperature changes tend to be "hottest on record" for the oceans.Advances in Atmospheric Science 2018 Continues Record Global Ocean Warming In addition to this, sea level rises and ocean acidification are among the most prominent and damaging long-term consequences of unchecked climate change.
==Sea also==
*Shark
*Bermuda Triangle
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Science
Category:Environmentalism
Category:Geology
Category:Global warming