The Ocean's secrets; new adventures in science

Once upon a time, four and a half billion years ago, the earth new born, was hot, round, and pockmarked all over by the turmoil within and without. There were no well-defined continental rises and no marked depressions in its surface. There was no water, no atmosphere as we know it, and of course no life. How did the distribution of continental elevations and oceanic depressions come about? How did the water fill the ocean basins? Were they filled slowly? Or was the mantle of water always about what it is today? How did the atmosphere's present composition come about? And how did life begin in the oceans? How did the chain of evolution begin and develop to the wealth of plant and animal life that we know on our planet today?

Find the answers in this issue! Download the PDF.

Read the article written by Captain Jacques Cousteau, marine explorer and defender of the oceans, for The UNESCO Courier here or in the pages 28-32 of the PDF.