Oceans on Pitara Kids Network

What Happens After an Earthquake?

Sat, 06 Apr 2002 21:55:39 +0000

People often wonder whether an earthquake can drastically change the topography of a region. A few tremors and some buildings that collapse does not mean that the shape of the earth has changed, does it? However, earthquakes can and do change the topography of the region.

An earthquake raised Rhodes island. The line of erosion (on the rock to the left) shows the sea level before the earthquake. The rise is uneven in different parts of the island, usually several meters. [Ввласенко / CC BY-SA]Ввласенко / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Our earth is made of many layers just like an onion. We can divide it into four main layers: the inner or solid core, the outer or liquid core, mantle, and crust. The inner core is composed mostly of iron and is extremely hot. This heat causes the outer core to remain in a liquid or molten form.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Sun, 25 Mar 2001 02:34:10 +0000

If there is one person who single-handedly fascinated millions of landlocked viewers to venture underwater into the unknown, through television, it is the Frenchman Jacques Cousteau. Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in the town of St.-Andre-de-Cubzac near Bordeaux, in France, to Daniel and Elizabeth Cousteau.

As a child, Jacques was quite sickly but he nonetheless learned to swim at the age of four. His initial dip led to his everlasting love for the sea.

Why can’t the Sun melt Snow?

Mon, 10 Feb 2003 13:20:47 +0000

There are some things in nature that have a great capacity to toss back or reflect a great deal of the sun’s light that falls on them. One of them is snow. Newly formed snow reflects about 90 per cent of the sunlight that falls upon it. This means that the sun is powerless to melt clean snow. And when snow does melt, it is not because of the sunlight. Snow does not melt on a spring day because of the sun’s heat. It melts because of the warm air from the sea.

Why is the Dead Sea dead?

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:54:44 +0000

The Dead Sea is indeed a very scary name for a lake. It is called so because nothing lives in it. There are no sea weeds or plants, no fish either. This is because the Dead Sea is nearly six times as salty as the ocean.

It also contains many other dissolved minerals, including magnesium chloride, calcium chloride and potassium chloride in large quantities. Whereas in fresh water, only minute quantities of these minerals are found. The high concentration of salt makes plant or animal life impossible.

Himalayas Have a Deep Impact on the Climate of the World

Sun, 27 Oct 2002 03:58:51 +0000

Tibet is known as the roof of the world. That is because it is on a region which has the highest altitude in the world. The Himalayan mountain range merges into the Tibetan plateau to form this region known as the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau.

Besides being the roof of the world, this plateau also has a deep impact on the climate of the world, says a report published in the May, 2001, edition of Nature, a science and environment journal. How the scientists made this connection is a very exciting story.

Why is the Mediterranean Sea Blue?

Wed, 19 Jan 2000 02:23:58 +0000

We know that about seventy one per cent of the earth’s surface is covered with water. The earth’s three main Oceans are the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

The Atlantic Ocean is a great mass of water that separates Europe and Africa from America. It is shaped like a great hour-glass-with a ‘waist’ where Africa and South America bulge out towards each other. Although in area it is less than half the Pacific, it has many ‘secondary’ seas, such as the Arctic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

My Dream (A Vision Of Peace)

Sat, 03 Aug 2002 20:42:44 +0000

Where the mountains touch the sky

Where poets DREAM, where eagles fly

A secret place above the crowd

Just beneath a silver-lined cloud.

Lift your eyes to a snowy peak

And see the soon-to-be we seek

Whisper DREAMS and let them rise

To the mountains old and wise.

Climbers climb, it’s time to try

Where the mountains touch the sky
Take me there. Oh take me now…

Someway, Someday, Somewhere, Somehow!

My Dream (A Vision Of Peace) [Illustration by Shinod AP]

Where the ocean meets the sky

The Secrets of the Ocean Floor

Wed, 04 Dec 2002 18:35:54 +0000

It is one question that is not a quizmasters’ favourite: which is the tallest mountain on earth? The answer is bound to come fast and snappy – Mt Everest, at a height of 29,000 feet.

But that is only on land. For, if you were to measure from the bottom of the ocean, the tallest mountain in the world will probably be Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It rises more than 15,748 feet under the sea and another 13,779 feet above it. The total comes to more than 29, 527 feet.

When will the Oceans of the Earth Overflow?

Sun, 05 Dec 1999 19:22:15 +0000

Try this out. Plug the sink and leave the water running. It will lead to a flood in the bathroom and a scolding for letting the water overflow. Since the sink could not hold an unlimited amount of water, it let the water spill out.

But even the oceans are enormous bodies of water that get flooded with water from rain, melting ice, and rivers year after year. Will they start overflowing too? If so, when? And, where will they go?

What is an Earthquake?

Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:15:31 +0000

One moment, the world seems just the way it was yesterday, the day before, last year, or even the day before the day before. All is well with the world. It’s a beautiful sunny day and you are sitting drinking your morning tea or coffee relaxed and enjoying the day. Suddenly there is a rattling of plates and glasses. Within seconds chairs and tables are rocking violently, the fans sway crazily and crockery is falling off the shelves. Help!! Sometimes plaster falls from the ceiling, walls develop cracks or worse still, they collapse. The very earth is shaking!

What is a Tsunami?

Tue, 28 Nov 2000 12:09:07 +0000

Last year there were three more fishing villages in the Pacific island country of Papua New Guinea than there are today. You might ask why. The answer is that these three villages were washed away by an ocean wave that was more like a giant wall of water. It goes by the name tsunami, a Japanese term meaning a harbour wave.

Ocean that Becomes a Giant Wall [Illustrations by Kusum Chamoli]

A tsunami is caused by a disturbance in the sea floor, just like the disturbances on land. It may take the form of a quake or volcanic eruption or landslides on the ocean floor. Imagine the slab-like pieces of the sea floor, each of which may be hundreds of kilometres long. And imagine these slabs moving against each other, forcing one or the other upwards.

Teenage Girl Lone Survivor from Yemeni Air Crash

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:03:50 +0000

Where: Moroni, Comoros

July 2, 2009 : Weeks after an Air France airliner crashed into the Pacific Ocean, a Yemeni jetliner went down into the Indian Ocean near Comoros, where it was scheduled to land. All passengers were killed, except one teenage girl.

The passengers on the ill-fated plane Airbus that crashed into the Indian Ocean were flying the last leg of a journey from Paris in France to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Of the 153 people on board, only one, a teenage girl, survived. Comoros is an archipelago of three main islands between Africa’s southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar. The aircraft, an Airbus 310, was believed to be very old, and some of its equipment had been certified faulty during an inspection in 2007. Severe turbulence and high speed winds at the time were among the factors that caused the crash.

The Dark Kingdom of Uranus

Wed, 31 Mar 1999 06:44:15 +0000

Named after the father of the Titans in Greek mythology, Uranus is the seventh planet in the solar system. It was first observed through a telescope by Sir William Herschel on March 13, 1781. Although Herschel wished to call the newly discovered planet Georgium Sidus (Georgian Star) for King George III of England, Johann Bode’s proposal of the name Uranus gained more acceptance over the years and finally became universal in the mid-19th century.

The Uranian realm is a dark kingdom, so remote from the sun that daylight there approximates a total solar eclipse on Earth. Such distance from the sun also makes Uranus unimaginably cold. Sample this: The temperature in Uranus would be minus 250 C (-346F) i.e. if a space traveler were to stick his hand out in that environment he would find it instantly freeze-dried.

Death Threat

Mon, 07 Jul 2003 08:08:23 +0000

March 19: The Olive Ridleys are olive-green coloured sea-turtles that have existed for more than 200 million years. The Gahirmatha beach in Orissa is one of their nesting sites, but unfortunately the fishermen have started catching these turtles for meat to sell in the local market.

This has alarmed environmentalists. Nature lover and scientist, BR Ray says that this trend will surely lead to the extinction of the turtles.
Thousands of female ridleys travel thousands of kilometres to lay their eggs at Gahirmatha beach. The beach also happens to be one of the four large nesting sites for Olive Ridleys in the world. The others are found in the tropical Pacific, Indian and the South Atlantic Oceans.

At night, the surface of the Indian Ocean sparkles with light. The light is...

Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:55:33 +0000