Importance of water | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Reservoirs of water on Earth | Automatic translation | Updated June 01, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||
It seems that once formed the Earth, there are 4.5 billion years, contained in his burning atmosphere, all the water in vapor form. | The ocean surface is 3.6 x108 km2, a simple calculation, if all the ice stored in ice caps and glaciers based, rising sea level would be 120 meters. |
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Area of land | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The average sea level enables us to define the references altitudes and depths of the earth's crust. While nothing seems more fixed than the coastal zone that separates the sea from the mainland, rocks and fossils show the opposite, showing significant displacement of the coastline in geological time. The analysis of sedimentary layers, made by scientists reveal these climbs and descents sea level over geological time. Sea-level changes at different scales punctuate the history of the Earth and its climate, low sea levels associated with relatively cold climates while in the high sea levels, climates are warmer. The area of land has varied considerably and their limitations are traced through the mapping of former marine and continental deposits. Western Europe has the aspect that we know today than a few tens of thousands of years. On maps this against the current outline the contours of coastlines can represent the movement of tectonic plates, with rotation and shift to the east of the Iberian peninsula, Corsica and Sardinia, compared to France. | Image: There are about 155 million years, only emerging in the South-West Europe and the massive armoricains Ardennes region of the Ebro and west of the Iberian Peninsula. The marine transgression covers almost all of France. | Image: There are 65 million years, discovered a regression most of France and the Iberian Peninsula. |