approximately 71 % of earth’s surface is covered with water.
approximately 71 % of earth’s surface is covered with water.
approximately what percentage of earth’s surface is covered with water?
71 %
earth's lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over many millions of years. about 71% of earth's surface is covered with water, mostly by oceans. the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together contain many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. the majority of earth's polar regions are covered in ice, including the antarctic ice sheet and the sea ice of the arctic ice pack. earth's interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the earth's magnetic field and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics.
earth
while the majority of earth's surface is covered by oceans, those oceans make up just a small fraction of the mass of the planet. the mass of earth's oceans is estimated to be 1.37 x 10 kg, which is 0.023% of the total mass of earth, 6.0 x 10 kg. an additional 0.5 x 10 kg of water is estimated to exist in ice, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and atmospheric water vapor. a significant amount of water is also stored in earth's crust, mantle, and core. unlike molecular ho that is found on the surface, water in the interior exists primarily in hydrated minerals or as trace amounts of hydrogen bonded to oxygen atoms in anhydrous minerals. hydrated silicates on the surface transport water into the mantle at convergent plate boundaries, where oceanic crust is subducted underneath continental crust. while it is difficult to estimate the total water content of the mantle due to limited samples, approximately three times the mass of the earth's oceans could be stored there. similarly, the earth's core could contain four to five oceans worth of hydrogen.
origin of water on earth