Oceans Facts

Canada has the world's longest coastline. The 1996 Canadian Encyclopedia gives the length as 243,797km, including major island coastlines while the 1997 Guiness Book of Records gives a figure of 244,800km, including islands. Stretched out as a single continuous line, Canada's coastline would circle the Earth more than six times!

Canada's Exclusive Economic Zone extends 200 nautical miles from shore and is equivalent to over 30 per cent of Canada's total landmass.

About seven million Canadians live in coastal communities, where many depend on the coast and the sea to make a living.

The first sailing ships built in what is now Canada were two small craft launched at Port-Royal, Acadia, by François Gravé du Pont in 1606.

Various compounds from sea cucumbers and quahaug clams are used in the treatment of tumours.

On May 27, 1990, a severe storm washed 39,466 pairs of Nike athletic shoes overboard from a ship in the North Pacific about 2,700km west of the North American coast. Curt Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham tested computer models of ocean currents by using the time and location of arrival of the shoes that drifted ashore.

On Feb. 11, 1977 a lobster weighing 20.1kg and measuring 1.07m from the tip of the largest claw to the tail, was caught off Nova Scotia. This is the heaviest recorded crustacean.

The total marine fish catch in 1950 was about 14 million tonnes. By 1994 it had risen to about 73 million tonnes.

Faint light flickers around hydrothermal vents deep on the mid-ocean ridges, far deeper than the faintest trace of light from the sun. The most likely source is the cracking of crystallized particles of metallic sulfides in the outflow from the vents. The light has been seen at vents that are not hot enough to emit thermal radiation with the colour observed.

The productivity for a given area of a natural shallow estuary is similar to that of the most productive land crops. Estuaries, sugarcane and sorghum all produce between 500 and 1250 grams of Carbon per square meter per year.

In July 1866, the North American end of the first Transatlantic Cable was brought ashore at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, from the steamer Great Eastern, then the world's largest ship. The European end was in Valencia, Ireland.