The Ocean It’s Home to the Biggest Animal Ever
The ocean doesn’t just have the most species of animals, it also has the biggest. As far as we know, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is the biggest animal that has ever existed. It’s even bigger than the largest species of dinosaurs were. It grows up to 98 feet (28.5 meters) and can weigh as much as 130 tons.
The World’s Tallest Mountain
You’ve probably been told that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth.
This isn’t actually true. Everest has the highest altitude anywhere on Earth, meaning the distance from sea level to its highest point. From sea level, Mount Everest is 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) tall. But, in Hawaii, there is an extinct volcano called Mauna Kea. From sea level to summit, the peak is only 13,803 feet (4,207.3 meters) high.
But the base of Mauna Kea isn’t at sea level, it’s over 19,000 feet (6,000 meters) underwater. If you measure it from it’s base on the ocean floor, Mauna Kea is 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) tall. That makes it the world’s tallest mountain, even if most of it is under the ocean.
The World’s Deepest Canyons
There are long, narrow canyons far below the ocean’s surface called trenches. These trenches are the deepest places on Earth.
Ocean trenches are found all over the world. They form when two plates in the Earth’s crust meet and one plate is forced to slide beneath the other. This creates a huge wrinkle that plunges downward.
The deepest spots in the seafloor are in the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It’s shaped like a crescent and is 1,580 miles (2,550 kilometers) long.
Its lowest point is called the Challenger Deep, it’s bottom is 36,070 feet (10,994 meters) below sea level, almost six times deeper than the Grand Canyon.
If you sank Mount Everest into the Challenger Deep, the tip of the mountain would still be over 2 kilometers below the surface of the water.
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