The Ocean

If you were an alien visiting our planet from Space, you would see the Earth as a blue planet scattered with brown patches. The vast areas coloured blue are water, and the brown patches are land. Over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, which forms a huge world sea, or ocean.

When the Earth was born, some 45,000 million years ago, there were no oceans. The Earth was far too hot, and so water only existed as vapour. When the Earth began to cool down, the water vapour condensed into storm clouds, and rain began to fall. Rain water began to form pools on the surface, and nearly 1,000 million years later the oceans were born. The early oceans and continents were not in the same places as they are today. And they are still on the move.

You might think that the sea floor is flat, but you would be wrong. Deep down on the seabed there are vast plains, high mountains and deep valleys. The deepest valleys and tallest mountains on Earth are found under the sea.

People have studied and mapped every continent, but much of the land under the sea is still unknown to us.

Thousands of different plants and animals live in the ocean. Most of them can be found in the upper 200 metres of the ocean. Further down, in the dimly lit twilight zone, the octopus lives… No light at all can reach depths below 1,000 metres, yet life still exists. Strange-looking fish with enormous teeth and luminous bodies can be met there. There are creatures that we have probably never seen.

The ocean is a fascinating and mysterious world, waiting to be explored.

Упр. 3. Ответьте на вопросы к тексту:

1. When was the Earth born? 2. Were there any oceans when the Earth was born? 3. How were the oceans formed? 4. What is the sea floor like? 5. Is the land under the sea known to us? 6. In what part of the ocean do different plants and animals live? 7. Where does the octopus live? 8. Does life exist in depths below 1000 metres? 9. What can be met there?

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11