Awesome Oceans

xkcd’s What If? answers another wild hypothetical question – basically, what might happen if you put a portal at the bottom of the deepest point in the ocean and let the water run down the drain? Because of the physics at play, it might take a long time before anyone noticed, but eventually you could ride your bike from the U.S. to New Zealand.

The Seabreacher is a single-person sea craft that can momentarily dip beneath the surface of the water. This POV footage by Jason Prado gives you a sense of what it’s like to ride inside one. It looks like a lot of fun, though it’s unfortunate that it can’t stay submerged for longer.

With a depth of 36,070 feet, the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in the Earth’s oceans. Bright Side explains what you might experience if you descended all the way to the bottom and what equipment upgrades you’d need as you went lower and lower.

After following James Cameron’s epic journey to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, we knew Earth’s oceans were deep. But it wasn’t until MetaBallStudios put together this video infographic that illustrates relative depths that we realized just how far down the bottom is… like 7000 feet further than the top of Mt. Everest.

If you’ve been to the beach, you know the ocean has a distinctive smell. While salt and dead fish are certainly part of the aroma, host Rose Bear Don’t Walk of SciShow explains what’s responsible for the water’s primary aromas, and how those organisms meaningfully impact the Earth’s ecosystem and climate.

Sound doesn’t travel all that far in the air or on the surface of the Earth. So how is it possible the sound of explosives detonated off the coast of Australia traveled half-way around the globe to be heard in Bermuda? MinuteEarth dives into the physics that allow sound to travel so much further at the bottom of the ocean.

Technically, all of the world’s oceans are connected and therefore they’re a single, giant body of water. Still, geographers sliced them into sections and named them so we’d know roughly where we are. Minute Earth explains where the boundaries are located, and suggests a more logical way of breaking them up based on science.

For as much as we think of our planet as good old terra firma, there is so much more to be seen and explored at the beneath the surface of our oceans. Kurzgesagt takes us on a deep sea journey to learn about some of the many species that dwell in the darkest waters.

In 1992, 12 containers fell off of a ship in the Pacific Ocean. Among the lost cargo – 29,000 rubber duckies. But those ducks would serve a greater purpose, helping oceanographers map currents based on where they washed ashore. Half as Interesting explains.