Ocean
Body of salt water covering most of Earth
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, 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.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ocean” is body of salt water covering most of Earth. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ocean, Body and salt, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ocean” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.