Oceanography 001 West Valley College
R. Lopez
1) What are the four main world oceans?
2) What percentage of Earth do oceans cover?
3) Compare and contrast the mean elevation of land area above sea to that of sea floor average depth?
4) How deep is the Mariana Trench (Challenger Deep)?
5) Are there any mountains on land higher than the depth of the Mariana Trench?
6) Drakes Passage separates the ___________ Ocean from the __________ Ocean.
7) The Straits of Malacca separate the __________ Ocean from the __________ Ocean.
8) A line from the Cape of Good Hope to Antarctica separates the __________ ocean from the ____________ ocean.
9) Which is the world’s largest ocean?
10) What are the two Heat Engines of Earth?
11) Explain the role of geological oceanography, chemical oceanography, physical oceanography, and biological oceanography as the interdisciplinary subjects of oceanography.
12) What percent of Earth’s water is ocean saltwater? What area of land holds the most freshwater?
13) What contribution did the Alexandrian librarian Eratoshenes of Cyrene make to world knowledge in 230 B.C.?
14) What did Claudius Ptolemy do sometime between A.D. 90 to A.D. 168 to “improve” Eratosthenes calculations? How did this “new” calculation of Earth’s circumference compel Christopher Columbus to sail westward to reach China and India?
15) What contribution did Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal make to marine science?
16) Who’s expedition was the first to circumnavigate the Earth?
17) What 18th century explorer is considered the first oceanographer?
18) What is significant about the Polynesian colonization of the South (and North) Pacific islands?