If the earth were completely smooth and covered in water, what would occur with ocean waves?

Asked by: Cheryl Sine

How deep would the ocean be if the Earth was smooth?

If the earth were smooth, all the land areas would be covered by seawater to a depth of some 8,810 feet – or one and two-thirds miles. “Sea level” of earth’s oceans varies in elevation by as much as 600 feet.

How do waves affect the earth’s surface?

Waves, wind, water, and ice shape and reshape the Earth’s land surface by eroding rock and solid in some areas and depositing them in other areas, sometimes in seasonal layers.

What causes the waves in the ocean?

Waves are most commonly caused by wind. Wind-driven waves, or surface waves, are created by the friction between wind and surface water. As wind blows across the surface of the ocean or a lake, the continual disturbance creates a wave crest.

What part of Earth is covered with water?

About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water.

How deep would the ocean be if there was no land?

The average depth of the Earth’s oceans is 3700m. They take up 79% of its surface area. If you lobbed off all of the continents and dumped them into the oceans, then smoothed out the ocean floor, the resulting world ocean would be about 2750m deep.

Can the ocean cover the Earth?

The simple answer is no. The whole world will never be underwater. But our coastlines would be very different. If all the ice covering Antarctica , Greenland, and in mountain glaciers around the world were to melt, sea level would rise about 70 meters (230 feet).

What causes big waves?

Waves start with a storm



On rare occasions earthquakes and landslides can generate waves, but usually waves are created by wind. Generally, the biggest and most powerful wind-generated waves are produced by strong storms that blow for a sustained period over a large area.

What happens to S waves as they travel the interior of the Earth?

S waves cannot pass through the liquid outer core, but P waves can. The waves are refracted as they travel through the Earth due to a change in density of the medium. This causes the waves to travel in curved paths.

What waves cause earthquakes?

Seismic waves

Seismic waves are caused by the sudden movement of materials within the Earth, such as slip along a fault during an earthquake. Volcanic eruptions, explosions, landslides, avalanches, and even rushing rivers can also cause seismic waves.

What are ocean waves called?

Three types of water waves may be distinguished: wind waves and swell, wind surges, and sea waves of seismic origin (tsunamis).

What conditions create the largest waves in the ocean?

The faster the wind, the longer it blows, or the farther it can blow uninterrupted, the bigger the waves. Therefore, a wave’s size depends on wind speed, wind duration, and the area over which the wind is blowing (the fetch).

Do waves break in the middle of the ocean?

Breaking of water surface waves may occur anywhere that the amplitude is sufficient, including in mid-ocean. However, it is particularly common on beaches because wave heights are amplified in the region of shallower water (because the group velocity is lower there).

What would the ocean look like if it was clear?

But if the oceans were to be completely transparent, theoretically, every part of the sea would be a photic zone. Sunlight would continue down over 3,500 meters (11482.94 ft)! This would allow colonies of fish to live all over the sea. That’s if they manage to survive.

What did NASA find in the ocean?

To their amazement, the scientists discovered vibrant ecosystems around the vents, teeming with marine organisms, such as translucent snailfish and amphipods, tiny flea-like crustaceans, that had never been seen before. “With this discovery, we [came across] a whole new way of living on Earth,” says Shank.

Would the ocean ever dry up?

The first three-dimensional climate model able to simulate the phenomenon predicts that liquid water will disappear on Earth in approximately one billion years, extending previous estimates by several hundred million years.

Which is the largest ocean on Earth?

The Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the world ocean basins. Covering approximately 63 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth, the Pacific is by far the largest of the world’s ocean basins.

Is Mariana Trench the deepest part of the ocean?

The Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean, is the deepest location on Earth. According to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the United States has jurisdiction over the trench and its resources. Scientists use a variety of technologies to overcome the challenges of deep-sea exploration and explore the Trench.

What is the average elevation of land on Earth?

The average elevation of continents = 840 m above sea level; 2750 ft above sea level (For comparison, the elevation of Atlanta is 1000 ft; the elevation of Dalton, GA is about 750 ft.)

What is the name of the vessel that reached a record depth of 35800 feet below sea level?

Trieste

The Fendouzhe’s maximum depth reached by Fendouzhe (which means “Striver” in Chinese) exceeds film director James Cameron’s solo 2012 dive to 35,787 feet (10,908 m) in the trench, and falls short of the 35,800 feet (10,912 m) attained by the Swiss-Italian-American vessel Trieste on Jan. 23, 1960.

Has anyone been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench?

While thousands of climbers have successfully scaled Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, only two people have descended to the planet’s deepest point, the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench.

What is the deepest depth a human has gone?

35,853 feet

Vescovo’s trip to the Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, back in May, was said to be the deepest manned sea dive ever recorded, at 10,927 meters (35,853 feet).