The Living Seas 汉译

The ocean covers three quarters of the earth's surface, produces 90 percent of all its life-supporting oxygen, and is the driving force behind the entire weather system. There are over 450 million cubic miles of sea on the earth; and each cubic mile contains over 150 million tons of minerals.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So vast and so pervasive is the sea that if the earth's crust were made level, ocean water would form a blanket over 8000 feet deep.

The oceans contribute immeasurably to the earth's life support system as well as provide an untapped storehouse of food, minerals, energy and archaeological treasure.

Advanced atmospheric diving suit permit researches to descend to depths of 1500 feet. Yet the ocean's average depth is greater than 12000 feet. It is at these depths that remarkable discoveries are being made, discoveries which only a short time ago would have been impossible.

In that depth, where darkness is absolute and pressure exceed eight tons per square inch, robotic submersibles have discovered enormous gorges, four times deeper than the Grand Canyon. Here, too, are volcanoes that vastly outnumber those on land. Landsides the size of Rhode Island have been recorded, as well as raging undersea storms that go completely unnoticed on the surface while dramatically rearranging the underwater landscapes.

And under these seas the largest single geological feature on earth has been found—a mountain range that dwarfs the Himilayas. It is a range that covers nearly one quarter of the earth's surface.

As these discoveries have come from the exploration of less than one-tenth of this undersea mountain range.

The earth is the only planet we know that has an ocean. The ocean is the largest feature on earth. Yet it is the one feature we know the least about .we know more the moon 24000 miles away than we know about the three-fourths of the earth covered with water .Man has set foot on the moon, but not on the most remote part of the earth, 35000 feet under the sea.

Technology is changing all that .It is literally parting the waves for today's undersea explorers. And it's bringing about the opportunity to transform vision, curiosity, and wonder into practical knowledge.

Properly managed as a tool to serve society, technology is the best hope for overcoming economic and social problems facing people everywhere. It always has been. The earliest relics of human life are tools. And our ancient ancestors used these tools to understand and change the world around them and make it better. The same is ture today.

The deep sea is the last frontier left to explore.