The Oceans Portal
A portal dedicated to oceans, seas, oceanography and related topics
Selected panorama
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A view of Filfla and the Mediterranean Sea. Filfla is a small, mostly barren, uninhabited islet 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles) south of Malta.
A surfer in the Pacific Ocean at the 2010 Mavericks competition, village of Princeton-by-the-Sea, northern California
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Introduction
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| Earth's ocean |
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Main five oceans division: Further subdivision: Marginal seas |
The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as oceans (in descending order by area: the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic/Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean), and are themselves mostly divided into seas, gulfs, and subsequent bodies of water. The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere, acting as a huge reservoir of heat for Earth's energy budget, as well as for its carbon cycle and water cycle, forming the basis for climate and weather patterns worldwide. The ocean is essential to life on Earth, harboring most of Earth's animals and protist life. It originated photosynthesis and therefore Earth's atmospheric oxygen, and still supplies half of it. (Full article...)
A sea is a very large body of salty water. The term has two distinct meanings. The first is the interconnected body of seawater that spans most of Earth, known as the sea or the ocean. The second is a named body of water: usually either a marginal sea (a second-order section of the oceanic sea such as the Mediterranean Sea), or a large, nearly landlocked body of water. (Full article...)
Oceanography (from Ancient Greek ὠκεανός (ōkeanós) 'ocean' and γραφή (graphḗ) 'writing'), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. (Full article...)
Selected article -
The Mediterranean Sea (/ˌmɛdɪtəˈreɪniən/ MED-ih-tə-RAY-nee-ən) is an intercontinental sea situated between Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Europe, and on the south by North Africa. To its west it is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar that separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa by only 14 km (9 mi); additionally, it is connected to the Black Sea through the Bosporus strait that intersects Turkey in the northeast and the Red Sea via the Suez Canal in the southeast.
The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi), representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface; it includes fifteen marginal seas, including the Aegean, Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, and Marmara. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. (Full article...)
Interesting facts -
- Heather Willauer (pictured) patented a method for removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from seawater, in tandem with hydrogen (H2) removed simultaneously. Willauer has researched catalysts to enable a continuous Fischer–Tropsch process to recombine carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen gases into complex hydrocarbon liquids to synthesize jet fuel for Navy and Marine aviation, and fuel for the U.S. Navy's ships at sea.
- The sea cucumber Leptopentacta elongata has a U-shaped or S-shaped body and occupies a burrow in the seabed.
- The POLYGON experiment, conducted in the 1970s, was the first experiment to establish the existence of so-called "mesoscale eddies", giving rise to the "mesoscale revolution" in oceanography.
Selected list articles and Marine habitat topics
| Marine habitats |
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| Coastal habitats |
| Ocean surface |
| Open ocean |
| Sea floor |
- List of oceans
- List of ancient oceans
- List of seas
- List of circumnavigations
- List of cruise lines
- List of largest lakes and seas in the Solar System
- List of marine biologists
- List of marine ecoregions
- List of maritime explorers
- List of naval battles
- List of ocean liners
- List of oceanographic institutions and programs
- List of oldest surviving ships
- List of rogue waves
- List of seafood dishes
- List of submarine topographical features
Tasks
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General images -
The following are images from various ocean-related articles on Wikipedia.
The three major cultural areas of the Pacific Ocean islands: Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia (from Pacific Ocean)
Greco-Roman trade with ancient India according to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea 1st century CE (from Indian Ocean)
The Arctic region showing the Northeast Passage, the Northern Sea Route within it, and the Northwest Passage via Canadian Inland Waters. (from Arctic Ocean)
In the subpolar gyre of the North Atlantic warm subtropical waters are transformed into colder subpolar and polar waters. In the Labrador Sea this water flows back to the subtropical gyre. (from Atlantic Ocean)
On the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean temporary logistic stations may be installed. Here, a Twin Otter is refueled on the pack ice at 86°N, 76°43'W. on April 16, 1990 during a flight to the North Pole (from Arctic Ocean)
The Arctic region; of note, the region's southerly border on this map is depicted by a red isotherm, with all territory to the north having an average temperature of less than 10 °C (50 °F) in July. (from Arctic Ocean)
Excavation of the Ertebølle middens in 1880 (from Atlantic Ocean)
Model of a Fijian drua, an example of an Austronesian vessel with a double-canoe (catamaran) hull and a crab claw sail (from Pacific Ocean)
A Chagossian on Diego Garcia in 1971, before the British expelled the islanders. He spoke a French-based creole language and his ancestors were likely brought as slaves in the 19th century. (from Indian Ocean)![Image 12"Terres Australes" [sic] label without any charted landmass (from Southern Ocean)](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Geography_world_map.jpeg/120px-Geography_world_map.jpeg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail)
"Terres Australes" [sic] label without any charted landmass (from Southern Ocean)
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is the strongest current system in the world oceans, linking the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins. (from Southern Ocean)
1937 delineation (from Southern Ocean)
An adult and sub-adult Minke whale are dragged aboard the Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru. (from Southern Ocean)
Bahama Banks (from Atlantic Ocean)
An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) map of the Pacific (from Pacific Ocean)
Madagascar's elephant bird, Mauritius's dodo bird and ostrich (from left to right) (from Indian Ocean)
Pacific Ocean currents have created three islands of debris. (from Pacific Ocean)
Famous official portrait of Captain James Cook who proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. "He holds his own chart of the Southern Ocean on the table and his right hand points to the east coast of Australia on it." (from Southern Ocean)
A general delineation of the Antarctic Convergence, sometimes used by scientists as the demarcation of the Southern Ocean (from Southern Ocean)
Fish of the Notothenioidei suborder, such as this young icefish, are mostly restricted to the Antarctic and Subantarctic. (from Southern Ocean)
1928 delineation (from Southern Ocean)
According to the Coastal hypothesis, modern humans spread from Africa along the northern rim of the Indian Ocean. (from Indian Ocean)
Embarked and disembarked slaves in the Atlantic slave trade 1525–1863 (first and last slave voyages) (from Atlantic Ocean)
The Kennedy Channel. (from Arctic Ocean)
Banks of the northeast Atlantic (from Atlantic Ocean)
The island geography of the Pacific Ocean Basin (from Pacific Ocean)
Sea cover in the Arctic Ocean, showing the median, 2005 and 2007 coverage (from Arctic Ocean)
Map of the Pacific Ocean during European Exploration, circa 1702–1707 (from Pacific Ocean)
The British invasion of Isle de France on 29 November 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars (from Indian Ocean)
For most of the 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean trade. (from Indian Ocean)
Continents and islands of the Southern Ocean (from Southern Ocean)
A female warty squid (Moroteuthis ingens) (from Southern Ocean)
Path of the thermohaline circulation. Purple paths represent deep-water currents, while blue paths represent surface currents.
Severe cracks in an ice pier in use for four seasons at McMurdo Station slowed cargo operations in 1983 and proved a safety hazard. (from Southern Ocean)
Density structure of the upper 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in the Arctic Ocean. Profiles of temperature and salinity for the Amundsen Basin, the Canadian Basin and the Greenland Sea are sketched. (from Arctic Ocean)
A map of Australia's official interpretation of the names and limits of oceans and seas around Australia (from Southern Ocean)
Admiral von Bellingshausen (from Southern Ocean)
The bathyscaphe Trieste before her record dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 23 January 1960 (from Pacific Ocean)
Air pollution in the Indian subcontinent spread over the Bay of Bengal and beyond. (from Indian Ocean)
In 2020, Japanese Prime Minister Suga declined to drink the bottle of Fukushima's treated radioactive water that he was holding, which would otherwise be discharged to the Pacific. (from Pacific Ocean)
Map of the Pacific Ocean during European Exploration, circa 1754. (from Pacific Ocean)
False color map of ocean depth in the Atlantic basin (from Atlantic Ocean)
The International Hydrographic Organization's delineation of the "Southern Ocean" has moved steadily southward since the original 1928 edition of its Limits of Oceans and Seas. (from Southern Ocean)
Iceberg A22A in the South Atlantic Ocean (from Atlantic Ocean)
![Image 12"Terres Australes" [sic] label without any charted landmass (from Southern Ocean)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Geography_world_map.jpeg)
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In the news
- 21 October 2026 –
- The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) of the United Kingdom approves production from the Jackdaw gas field after energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh authorized the NSTA to grant consent, allowing operator Adura to begin supplying gas by late October. (UPI)
- 19 October 2026 – Mediterranean Sea migrant smuggling
- Twelve migrants, including an infant, are killed when two separate speedboats capsize off the coast of the Lesbos and Samos islands in Greece. (AP)
- 18 October 2026 – Free trade agreements of Vietnam
- Vietnam signs a free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) that reduces or eliminates tariffs on industrial, agricultural, and fish products and covers services, intellectual property, and sustainable development. (AFP)
- 13 October 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war
- Two merchant ships are hit by unknown drones off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, with one sinking. Eleven crew members are missing and 20 in total are rescued. Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev has blamed Russia and summoned its ambassador. It is the second such attack in six days. (Reuters)
- 13 October 2026 –
- Indonesian authorities release 20 protected green sea turtles back into the oceans off Bali after they were seized from an empty boat abandoned by wildlife smugglers last week. (AP)
WikiProjects
Topics
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Categories
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Oceans
Seas
Oceanography
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
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Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Admiralty law
| Admiralty and maritime law |
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| History |
| Features |
| Contract of carriage / charterparty |
| Parties |
| Judiciaries |
| International organizations |
| International conventions |
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| International Codes |
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Do you have a question about oceans, seas or oceanography that you can't find the answer to? Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.
External media
- World Ocean Database and World Ocean Atlas Series – from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Includes the World Ocean Atlas.
- European Atlas of the Seas – the European Atlas of the Seas, from the European Commission
- NOAA Research – NOAA research news, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
- Ocean Research – from The World Ocean Observatory
- Ocean Biodiversity Information System – "a global open-access data and information clearing-house on marine biodiversity for science, conservation and sustainable development"
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