Why do you count the Americas as one, but Eurasia and Africa as two?
I’m that way with Van Morrison:
By Grabthar’s hammer, by the suns of Warvan, I swear that love “Tupelo Honey” as one of my favoritest Van Morrison songs. But there aren’t seven oceans. There are seven seas, poetic license or no.
There is only one ocean. I’m surprised nobody’s said that.
Back on topic: what about the Caspian Sea? If it is not an ocean in its own right, what ocean is it part of? The long gone Paratethys?
I think the Southern Ocean is sometimes considered a discrete ocean because the Antarctic Circumpolar Current kind of isolates its waters from the other oceans.
Until it gets overrun with orcs…
The Arctic and Southern Oceans are of course much colder, being covered with sea ice at least seasonally (Southern Ocean) to completely (Arctic in the winter). Although the Atlantic and Pacific both vary greatly in temperature, so you can’t really use that to define them as separate oceans, unless perhaps you use the areas that stay ice-free year-round. Salinity also varies greatly even within ocean basins, with the Atlantic being noticeably saltier.
As far as dividing the oceans into separate areas goes, it is easy to see the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic as separate oceans since they are all divided to some extent by landmasses (some also divide the Atlantic and Pacific into north/south although it is kind of hard to see that in the Pacific, but like using currents to define the Southern Ocean, ocean currents are different on opposite sides of the equator).
only one; Blue.
I would still urge you to reconsider the status of the Caspian. It is:
A) salty;
B) of a somewhat notable size;
and:
C) though it once was connected to the Main Ocean;
D) it is now isolated.
This is, (in my mind at least) enough to render it the status of “ocean”. So that leaves us with a number of 2 oceans: The Main Ocean (incorporating the Atlantic, the Pacific, etc.) and the Caspian Sea.
Anyone have a third?
I would still urge you to reconsider the status of the Caspian. It is:
A) salty;
B) of a somewhat notable size;
and:
C) though it once was connected to the Main Ocean;
D) it is now isolated.
This is, (in my mind at least) enough to render it the status of “ocean”. So that leaves us with a number of 2 oceans: The Main Ocean (incorporating the Atlantic, the Pacific, etc.) and the Caspian Sea.
Anyone have a third?
Oh yeah? What about the Great Salt Ocean in Utah?
Was it ever connected to the Pacific? In that case, it might count.
It was ONCE connected to the main ocean … to my mind, that’s an argument to downgrade it from “ocean” to “sea” if it actually was one. Wiki notes:
Note that it says “possibly” a part of the World Ocean, BTW. There’s no requirement that a “sea” be part of an ocean. Landlocked seas:
What we also need is a definition for the dividing line between a “sea” (inland variety) and a “salt lake”. The “Great Salt LAKE” is a heck of a lot larger than the “Dead SEA”, never mind the “Salton SEA”.
Yeah, and the Caspian Sea can swallow them both… without any remarcable change of the shoreline…
I’m sorry… lost myself somewhere down there… won’t happen again … appollo- logies -to you everyone!
(GLUG…GLUG…GLUG…(wipes my mouth)
…
and now, when everything is hopefully settled: does any one of you have a quick xor dirty definition of what constitutes an ocean, and what’s merely a sea?
An ocean has for its bottom the ocean floor, which is the basaltic crust. The Caspian and Black might not qualify, not even the Med since the Med is just a depression on the boundaries of the two colliding plates that are North Africa and Southern Europe. All three still have continental granite at their bottoms.
Good point. So, eight then.
