Understanding the effects of climate change on the ocean requires understanding exactly how deep the ocean is. The National Ocean Service says that the average depth of the ocean — taking its shallowest and deepest parts into account — is about 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers). In the bottom of the Mariana Trench rests the deepest spot of the ocean, Challenger Deep, at a staggering 35,876 feet (10,935 kilometers) deep. To put things in perspective, that’s about 7,000 feet deeper than Mt. Everest is tall, per the National Ocean Service.
There’s an entire, self-contained world within Earth’s oceans, full of life that seems absolutely alien to landbound creatures like us. Oceans cover 70% of Earth’s surface, but we’ve only explored about 20% of them, as the National Ocean Service cites. Even only 35% of the coastal regions around the U.S. have been mapped, and that’s using modern sonar equipment, not first-hand exploration.
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As Vox explains, scientists split the ocean into layers of depth depending on how deep light penetrates. The top, brightest layer is called the sunlight zone and spans from the surface to 200 meters deep. Under that is the murky, blueish, dimly lit twilight zone, which spans from 200 to 1000 meters deep. Under that is the utterly black, lightless midnight zone, which spans from 1000 to 4,000 meters. Below this are the abyssal and hadal zones reaching down to 11,000 meters deep. Each of these zones comprises its own ecosystem that interacts with the others.
