OCEAN FACTS: In recognition of Ocean Month, here are some more fun ocean facts:

— According to CBS News, more than half of the United States exists underwater. How, you ask? Simple! The borders of our country don’t stop where the land ends; they expand 200 nautical miles away from shore.

— The Mediterranean used to be a dry basin until some 5 million years ago during the Zanclean flood—in which water from the Atlantic poured through the Strait of Gibraltar and filled the basin. Theories abound as to how this happened, but one catastrophic interpretation has the basin filling up in only two years, thanks to a massive torrent of water.

— Not to take anything away from the gorgeous Grand Canyon on Earth, but the Zhemchug Canyon, located in the Bering Sea, has a vertical relief of 8,520 feet—almost 2,500 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon.

— You can’t drink sea water, but you can drink sea ice. However, you don’t want to drink fresh sea ice, which still has little pockets of brine trapped in between ice crystals. As the ice ages, the brine drains out, and the ice becomes fresh enough that, according to the NSIDC, it can be melted and consumed.

— For the past few decades, according to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, submarine cables buried deep within the oceans have carried more than 97 percent of intercontinental data traffic—meaning that overseas communication is made possible by ocean-based cables.

— Oceans have an average depth of 12,100 feet and because light waves can only penetrate 330 feet of water, everything below that point is dark. Seeing as water makes up most of the planet, this means that most of Earth exists in absolute darkness all the time.

Facts found at: https://bestlifeonline.com/crazy-ocean-facts/