OCEANS AND SEAS ARE DIFFERENT?

The difference lies in their depth, area and variety of marine life. An ocean is deeper and covers a greater area as compared to the sea. On the other hand, a sea has more diverse plant and animal life. There are fewer plants in an ocean as there are large areas where sunlight does not penetrate. The deep-sea creatures found in the darkness of oceans are unique.

                          Sea

Ocean

Sea is also made up of salty water but is smaller in size compared to oceans.

Ocean covers approximately 70% of the earth’s total surface. Ocean is made up of salty water.

The largest sea is the Meditteranean Sea. The area of Meditteranean sea is approximately 1.14 million square miles.

The largest Ocean is the Pacific Ocean with an area of approximately 60 million square miles. The smallest Ocean is the Arctic Ocean covering an area of 5.4 million square miles.

Seas are usually located close to land.

Oceans are not necessarily located close to land.

Aquatic life exists in abundance in seas as seas are usually located close to the Land.

Oceans have reduced aquatic life as it is far away from the land and deeper than the Seas.

There is a large quantity of marine life in the Seas as sunlight is able to penetrate deeper into the seas, allowing photosynthesis.

The marine life in oceans is usually confined to bacteria, shrimp, microscopic planktons. This is due to lack of penetration of sunlight deep into oceans thus not giving much scope for photosynthesis.

Some of the major seas are Mediterranean Sea, Carribean Sea, South China Sea, Black Sea etc. The deepest sea is Carribean Sea with an approximate depth of 6900 metres.

The Deepest Ocean is Pacific Ocean which is around 10,000 metres deep and the Arctic Ocean is around 5600 metres deep.