Beginner’s Guide to Continents and Oceans

Land makes up about 1/3rd of the earth’s surface, the rest 2/3rd being made up of water. Continents are a landform. A continent is a big and sometimes contiguous landform. Islands associated with a landmass or continent are counted amongst continents. Reportedly, the area of all the continents in the world sums up to 148 million km2. There are 7 continents in the world at present which are Asia, South America, North America, Antarctica, Africa, Europe, and Australia. The ocean is a form of water body that is essentially a vast expanse of brine water covering 70.8% of the surface.  

Continents and Oceans

Continents and oceans make up the entirety of the surface of our home planet. Almost 70.8% of it is constituted by oceans and the rest is constituted of landmasses. Continents are geographically distinct based on culture as well. Asia and Eurasia are contiguous pieces of the landmass despite this, they are linguistically as well as culturally distinct. The continents are built over the earth’s crust and formed during the movement of the crust and the shifting of tectonic plates. Tectonic plates are nothing but broken up huge pieces of the earth’s crust that were formed during the creation of the earth almost 4.6 billion years prior. Over time through rock fragmentation and position, along the borders of tectonic plates continental forming materials accumulated through a distinctive process known as the subduction. Continental crust is lighter than the heavy oceanic crust that supports oceans. 

Oceans

Oceans are seas geographically divided into larger sections. They are a huge body of water containing salty water. Oceans are the source of 97% of the available water on earth. There are several oceans which are:

• The Pacific Ocean
• The Atlantic Ocean
• The Indian Ocean
• The Arctic Ocean
• Antarctic Ocean
• Southern Ocean 

In the overall study of continents and oceans, botany is an important subsection of study. It is related to the biosphere which supports the most amount of life on the planet. Botany is the name given to the study of various kinds of plants, herbs, and shrubs. Botany is a branch of biology. Botany studies and deals with the various chemical, structural and biological processes of plants and their relationship with their surroundings. The study of plants or their fossilized remains helps out geologists a lot. That is why botany also requires knowledge of oceans and continents. 

Landforms

The continental landforms in each continent are further divided into four major and 4 minor categories. The four major kinds are plains, mountains, plateaus, and hills. The minor ones are basins, buttes, valleys, and canyons. Meteorology is associated with the atmospheric phenomenon that involves the study of climate and weather. A meteorologist is a person who studies meteorology. Continents are also divided into supercontinents (have several continental cores) and subcontinents (peninsular sections of the continents), microcontinents (islands on crusts), and submerged continents (under the ocean). 

Water forms

The ocean is a type of water form found on earth. There are other types of water forms as well:

• Seas
• Rivers
• Lakes
• Glaciers

Conclusion

The continent and ocean are fascinating engineering of nature that have enabled such vast diversities of land and water forms as well as lives. It is believed by many scientists based on recent studies of continental fragments that early continents made up a negligible amount of the surface, the earth instead of being covered by a huge primitive sea.