Portal:Oceans

The Oceans Portal
A portal dedicated to oceans, seas, oceanography and related topics

Selected panorama

– Hover over image and scroll to middle for controls to see more selected panorama images –

Introduction

WP:OCPWP:OCP

The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as oceans (in descending order by area: the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic/Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean), and are themselves mostly divided into seas, gulfs and subsequent bodies of water. The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere, acting as a huge reservoir of heat for Earth's energy budget, as well as for its carbon cycle and water cycle, forming the basis for climate and weather patterns worldwide. The ocean is essential to life on Earth, harbouring most of Earth's animals and protist life. It originated photosynthesis and therefore Earth's atmospheric oxygen, and still supplies half of it. (Full article...)

A sea is a large body of salt water. The term has two distinct meanings. The first is the interconnected body of seawater that spans most of Earth, known as the sea or the ocean. The second is a named body of water: usually either a marginal sea (a second-order section of the oceanic sea such as the Mediterranean Sea), or a large, nearly landlocked body of water. (Full article...)

Oceanography (from Ancient Greek ὠκεανός (ōkeanós) 'ocean' and γραφή (graphḗ) 'writing'), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. (Full article...)

Read more about oceans...
Read more about the sea...
Read more about oceanography...

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article - show another

Ming China's treasure fleet undertook maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433. The Yongle Emperor ordered the construction of the fleet in 1403. The grand project resulted in seven far-reaching ocean voyages to the coastal territories and islands of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Admiral Zheng He was commissioned to command the fleet for the expeditions. Six of the voyages occurred during the Yongle Emperor's reign (r. 1402–1424) and the seventh voyage occurred during the Xuande Emperor's reign (r. 1425–1435). The first three voyages reached up to Calicut on India's Malabar Coast, while the fourth voyage went as far as Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. In the last three voyages, the fleet traveled up to the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

The Chinese expeditionary fleet was heavily militarized and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world. They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China. During the course of the voyages, they destroyed Chen Zuyi's pirate fleet at Palembang, captured the Sinhalese Kotte kingdom of King Alakeshvara, and defeated the forces of the Semudera pretender Sekandar in northern Sumatra. The Chinese maritime exploits brought many countries into China's tributary system and sphere of influence through both military and political supremacy, thus incorporating the states into the greater Chinese world order under Ming suzerainty. Moreover, the Chinese restructured and established control over an expansive maritime network in which the region became integrated and its countries became interconnected on an economic and political level. (Full article...)

More information List of selected articles ...

List of selected articles

Close

edit

Interesting facts - show different entries

The NOAAS Pisces (R 226) oceanographic research vessel (pictured) was named by five seventh graders from Southaven, Mississippi.
The Top 10 New Species of 2014 included a protist that acts like a sponge.
In 2018, an asteroid measuring 12 meters (39 feet) across exploded in an air burst over the Bering Sea near the Kamchatka Peninsula with the force of 173 kilotons of TNT.

More facts

edit

Selected list articles and Marine habitat topics

edit

Tasks

edit tasks

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : List of oceanographers, create a comprehensive article on Concentrations of marine debris out of all the gyre and "garbage patch" articles
Copyedit : Draft:Terrance (octopus)
Expand : Coral Sea, Endeavour Strait, Greenland Sea, Solomon Sea
Photo : find images for Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in the oceans
Stubs : Oceanography stub articles, Marine geography stub articles, Aleutian Trench, Bellingshausen Sea, Caernarfon Bay, Gerlache Strait, Gulf of Oman, Iceland Sea, Draft:Terrance (octopus)
Update : Botany Bay, Wilkins Sound, Mariana Trench, Challenger Deep
Verify : Antarctic Circumpolar Current, Bering Sea, Gulf of Aden, Iceberg B-15, Ionian Sea, Japan Trench, Moreton Bay, Sound (geography), Timor Sea
Other : add ISBNs and remove excessive or inappropriate external links from Aral Sea; check La Belle (ship) for GA status; improve citations or footnotes and remove excessive or inappropriate external links from MS Estonia

edit

General images - show new batch

The following are images from various ocean-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The three major cultural areas of the Pacific Ocean islands: Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 2Bahama Banks (from Atlantic Ocean)
Image 3A general delineation of the Antarctic Convergence, sometimes used by scientists as the demarcation of the Southern Ocean (from Southern Ocean)
Image 4Map showing the migration of the Austronesian peoples (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 5False color map of ocean depth in the Atlantic basin (from Atlantic Ocean)
Image 6The Arctic Ocean, with borders as delineated by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), including Hudson Bay (some of which is south of 57°N latitude, off the map) and all other marginal seas. (from Arctic Ocean)
Image 7Fish of the Notothenioidei suborder, such as this young icefish, are mostly restricted to the Antarctic and Subantarctic. (from Southern Ocean)
Image 8In 2020, Japanese Prime Minister Suga declined to drink the bottle of Fukushima's treated radioactive water that he was holding, which would otherwise be discharged to the Pacific. (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 9A dhow off the coast of Kenya (from Indian Ocean)
Image 10Madagascar's elephant bird, Mauritius's dodo bird and ostrich (from left to right) (from Indian Ocean)
Image 11A wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) on South Georgia (from Southern Ocean)
Image 12Waves in the trade winds in the Atlantic Ocean – areas of converging winds that move along the same track as the prevailing wind – create instabilities in the atmosphere that may lead to the formation of hurricanes.
Image 131937 delineation (from Southern Ocean)
Image 14Sea cover in the Arctic Ocean, showing the median, 2005 and 2007 coverage (from Arctic Ocean)
Image 15Three polar bears approach USS Honolulu near the North Pole. (from Arctic Ocean)
Image 16The Atlantic Gyres influenced the Portuguese discoveries and trading port routes, here shown in the India Run ("Carreira da Índia"), which would be developed in subsequent years. (from Atlantic Ocean)
Image 17Manganese nodule (from Southern Ocean)
Image 18Orca (Orcinus orca) hunting a Weddell seal in the Southern Ocean (from Southern Ocean)
Image 19Malé's population has increased from 20,000 people in 1987 to more than 220,000 people in 2020. (from Indian Ocean)
Image 20Mombasa Port on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast (from Indian Ocean)
Image 21Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars taking over Tahiti on 9 September 1842 (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 22Distribution of the major water mass in the Arctic Ocean. The section sketches the different water masses along a vertical section from Bering Strait over the geographic North Pole to Fram Strait. As the stratification is stable, deeper water masses are denser than the layers above. (from Arctic Ocean)
Image 23Air pollution in the Indian subcontinent spread over the Bay of Bengal and beyond. (from Indian Ocean)
Image 24Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, U.S. in 2020 (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 25The island geography of the Pacific Ocean Basin (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 26Map of the Pacific Ocean during European Exploration, circa 1702–1707 (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 27Maris Pacifici by Ortelius (1589). One of the first printed maps to show the Pacific Ocean (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 28"Southern Ocean" as alternative to the Aethiopian Ocean, 18th century (from Southern Ocean)
Image 29Admiral von Bellingshausen (from Southern Ocean)
Image 30The 1564 Typus Orbis Terrarum, a map by Abraham Ortelius, showed the imagined link between the proposed continent of Antarctica and South America. (from Southern Ocean)
Image 31A stratovolcano in Ulawun on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 32During summer, warm continental masses draw moist air from the Indian Ocean, producing heavy rainfall. The process is reversed during winter, resulting in dry conditions. (from Indian Ocean)
Image 33Map of the Pacific Ocean during European Exploration, circa 1754. (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 34Minke whale (from Arctic Ocean)
Image 35As the Gulf Stream meanders across the North Atlantic from the North American east coast to Western Europe its temperature drops by 20 °C (36 °F).
Image 36The economically important Silk Road was blocked from Europe by the Ottoman Empire in c. 1453 with the fall of the Byzantine Empire. This spurred exploration, and a new sea route around Africa was found, triggering the Age of Discovery. (from Indian Ocean)
Image 37Sunset in Monterey County, California, U.S. (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 38A copepod (from Arctic Ocean)
Image 39MS Explorer in Antarctica in January 1999. She sank on 23 November 2007 after hitting an iceberg. (from Southern Ocean)
Image 40Famous official portrait of Captain James Cook who proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. "He holds his own chart of the Southern Ocean on the table and his right hand points to the east coast of Australia on it." (from Southern Ocean)
Image 41Marine debris on a Hawaiian coast in 2008 (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 42Excavation of the Ertebølle middens in 1880 (from Atlantic Ocean)
Image 43The International Hydrographic Organization's delineation of the "Southern Ocean" has moved steadily southward since the original 1928 edition of its Limits of Oceans and Seas. (from Southern Ocean)
Image 44The Austronesian maritime trade network was the first trade routes in the Indian Ocean. (from Indian Ocean)
Image 45The Antarctic Ocean, as delineated by the draft 4th edition of the International Hydrographic Organization's Limits of Oceans and Seas (2002) (from Southern Ocean)
Image 46Embarked and disembarked slaves in the Atlantic slave trade 1525–1863 (first and last slave voyages) (from Atlantic Ocean)
Image 47Continents and islands of the Southern Ocean (from Southern Ocean)
Image 48Impact of El Niño and La Niña on North America (from Pacific Ocean)
Image 491928 delineation (from Southern Ocean)
Image 50Typhoon Tip at global peak intensity on 12 October 1979 (from Pacific Ocean)

edit

Related portals

edit

In the news

3 September 2026 –: Six crew members are referred to court as part of the investigation into the ship collision in the Sea of Marmara yesterday, while the search continues for the ten Turkish crew members aboard the sunken MV Tuğberk İmamoğlu cargo ship. (BBC News)
2 September 2026 –: The MV Tuğberk İmamoğlu cargo ship sinks in the Marmara Sea after a collision with an oil tanker, leaving ten people missing. (Euronews)
25 August 2026 – Operation Southern Spear: The U.S. military launches a strike against a vessel in the Caribbean Sea allegedly carrying drug smugglers, killing four people. (The Guardian)
24 August 2026 – Operation Southern Spear: The United States Southern Command's Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere launches a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean on alleged drug traffickers, killing two people. (CNN) (PBS)
23 August 2026 –: The Indian Coast Guard and Navy's Eastern Naval Command reports that two crew members from the Panama-flagged MV Ocean Winner have been rescued after it sank off the coast of Bay of Bengal in eastern India. (Times of India) (New Indian Express)