structural:expansion
Physical science

Earth is the only known planet with seas of liquid water on its surface, although Mars possesses ice caps and similar planets in other solar systems may have oceans. Earth's 1,335,000,000 cubic kilometers (320,000,000 cu mi) of sea contain about 97.2 percent of its known water and covers approximately 71 percent of its surface. Another 2.15% of Earth's water is frozen, found in the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean, the ice cap covering Antarctica and its adjacent seas, and various glaciers and surface deposits around the world. The remainder (about 0.65% of the whole) form underground reservoirs or various stages of the water cycle, containing the freshwater encountered and used by most terrestrial life: vapor in the air, the clouds it slowly forms, the rain falling from them, and the lakes and rivers spontaneously formed as its waters flow again and again to the sea.

The scientific study of water and Earth's water cycle is hydrology; hydrodynamics studies the physics of water in motion. The more recent study of the sea in particular is oceanography. This began as the study of the shape of the ocean's currents but has since expanded into a large and multidisciplinary field: it examines the properties of seawater; studies waves, tides, and currents; charts coastlines and maps the seabeds; and studies marine life. The subfield dealing with the sea's motion, its forces, and the forces acting upon it is known as physical oceanography. Marine biology (biological oceanography) studies the plants, animals, and other organisms inhabiting marine ecosystems. Both are informed by chemical oceanography, which studies the behavior of elements and molecules within the oceans: particularly, at the moment, the ocean's role in the carbon cycle and carbon dioxide 's role in the increasing acidification of seawater. Marine and maritime geography charts the shape and shaping of the sea, while marine geology (geological oceanography) has provided evidence of continental drift and the composition and structure of the Earth, clarified the process of sedimentation, and assisted the study of volcanism and earthquakes.