If you take practically anything that exists in nature, the chances are that there is also a special science to study it. Oceanography is the study of all the sciences connected with the ocean to help man understand how the ocean was formed and how changes take place in it.

As you might imagine, this takes quite a bit of studying! Let’s see what it includes. Well, we can begin with the shoreline itself. The seacoast, the borderline between land and sea, is always changing due to tides, storms, everyday action of the sea against the shore, and upward and downward movements of the land.

The temperatures and salt content of the oceans are also studied. And strangely enough, man still has no good explanation as to why the ocean is salty. How about the tides? They are regular movements of the waters caused by the pull of the moon and the sun. These are studied constantly by oceanographers.

Then we come to the currents. Ocean currents are like rivers of water flowing through the ocean. They are warmer or colder than the waters through which they pass. Because they are important to man, they are always being studied.

As we all know, there are countless kinds of plants and animals living in the ocean. Oceanographers spend a great deal of time on this subject, too. How deep is the ocean in various places? This also is very important to man, and there are scientists who are concerned only with the question of ocean depth.

Even what is going on at the bottom of the ocean is of interest to man. We know there is a soft, oozy mud covering the floor of the ocean down to a depth of 3,657 meters. It is made up of the limey skeletons of tiny sea animals. The animal and plant life of the ocean bottom can be studied by dredging up portions of the mud from the sea floor.

All in all, the ocean, which looks like just a big body of water to most of us, is really a vast and complicated subject about which man wants to learn everything he can. And oceanographers are increasing our knowledge of the ocean by their constant study of every part of it and everything in it!