How do you know where one ocean ends and another begins?

Answer 1

While the world's oceans are all connected - the Atlantic touches the Pacific through the Arctic and south of South America, and the Indian touches the Atlantic south of Africa, and the Pacific and Indian interact through the waters off of Southeast Asia and Australia, one way to determine "is this water part of one ocean and not another" is to look at the ocean currents.

Oceanographers (Scientists whose specialty is the oceans), can study the directions of the ocean currents, which also directly impact the type of weather found around each ocean. Most currents end up make large loop motions in each ocean, further broken up by the equatorial regions.

For instance, if you were off the coast of South Africa, but didn't know whether you were properly in the Atlantic, Indian, or Antarctic Oceans, you could figure it out by where the current took you (if you waited a long time). If the current swung you north along the west coast of Africa, you started in part of the South Atlantic current system, so you were in the Atlantic, but if the current swung you eastward, and eventually northward to Australia, you were in the Indian Ocean's system of currents, but if you continued going east, and ended up traveling all the way around the world, you were in the Antarctic Circumpolar current, and so in the Antarctic Ocean.

Before humanity understood the currents, they used arbitrary lines on maps or landmarks to best determine where oceans ended and began from each other. For the Atlantic and Pacific, drawing an imaginary line south from the tip of South America created the dividing line between those two.

Answer 2

I used to live in CapeTown, South Africa and just round the corner from there, the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean but you can't see anything different in the sea. It's not as if the waves from the two oceans are going in different directions and meet in a great big wall of water or anything. You just have to go by where the "experts" say the oceans start and end as they have done the maths and can give the longitude and latitudes.

Answer 3

I don´t know about all oceans, but only two months ago I was in South Africa and the place where the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans meet is called Cape l´Agulhas, which is the southernmost point of the African continent as well. The spot is marked by a small monument with a bronze plaque.
If you trust me, send me your e-mail address and I´ll send you some photos.

Answer 4

Atlantic/Pacific; Straits of Magellan.
Atlantic/Indian; Cape Town
Indian/Pacific; Tazmania
Atlantic/Arctic; Greenland Sea
Pacific/Arctic; Bering Strait

Answer 5

The boundaries of the Oceans were clearly determined by the International Nautical Convention.

Answer 6

someone drew lines on a map of the globe one day and basically made it all up i reckon, all to do with territory, lots of little oceans instead of one big happy ocean. Personally I don't think the fish worry about it too much to be honest.

Answer 7

Geologically, an ocean is an area of oceanic crust covered by water.
From this point of view, there are three "oceans" today: the World Ocean, and the Black and Caspian Seas that were formed by the collision of Cimmeria with Laurasia. The Mediterranean Sea is very nearly its own "ocean", being connected to the World Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar, and indeed several times over the last few million years movement of the African Continent has closed the strait off entirely, making the Mediterranean a fourth "ocean". (The Black Sea is connected to the Mediterranean through the Bosporus, but this is in effect a natural canal cut through continental rock some 7,000 years ago, rather than a piece of oceanic sea floor like the Strait of Gibraltar.)
This global, interconnected body of salt water, called the World Ocean, is generally divided by the continents and archipelagos into the following bodies, from the largest to the smallest: the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean.

The Pacific Ocean (from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan) is the world's largest body of water. It encompasses a third of the Earth's surface, having an area of 179.7 million square kilometres (69.4 million sq mi)—significantly larger than Earth's entire landmass, with room for another Africa to spare. Extending approximately 15,500 kilometres (9,600 mi) from the Bering Sea in the Arctic to the icy margins of Antarctica's Ross Sea in the south .
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of the earth's surface. The ocean's name, derived from Greek mythology, means the "Sea of Atlas." The oldest known mention of this name is contained in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (I 202).

This ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending in a north-south direction and is divided into the North Atlantic and South Atlantic by Equatorial Counter Currents at about 8° North latitude. Bounded by the Americas on the west and Europe and Africa on the east, the Atlantic is linked to the Pacific Ocean by the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Drake Passage on the south
The Indian Ocean (Hindi: हिन्द महासागर) is the third largest body of water in the world, covering about 20% of the Earth's water surface. It is bounded on the north by Southern Asia (the Indian subcontinent); on the west by the Arabian Peninsula and Africa; on the east by the Malay Peninsula, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the 20° east meridian running south from Cape Agulhas,[1] and from the Pacific by the 147° east meridian. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30°north latitude in the Persian Gulf. This ocean is nearly 10,000 kilometers (6,200 mi) wide at the southern tips of Africa and Australia; its area is 73,556,000 square kilometers (28,400,000 mi²), including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
The Southern Ocean is oceanographically defined as an ocean connected with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which circulates around Antarctica. It includes Amundsen Sea, Bellingshausen Sea, part of the Drake Passage, Ross Sea, a small part of the Scotia Sea, and Weddell Sea. The total area is 20,327,000 square kilometers (7,848,000 mi²), and the coastline length is 17,968 kilometers (11,165 mi).
The Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 square km (5,440,000 mi²), slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the United States. The coastline length is 45,389 kilometers (28,203 mi). Nearly landlocked, it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and several islands. It includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, White Sea and other tributary bodies of water. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea. Its geographic coordinates are: 90°00′N 0°00′E
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean

Answer 8

when you see the words "pacific ocean" under the waves

Answer 9

Look at a map and figure out the lattitude and logitude.

Answer 10

Imaginary lines called latitudes and longitudes.