How Was Oceans Formed

Firstly, the Earth is the only planet in the solar system that has enough oxygen and water to support life, but it was not like that at first, in actual fact, it was the opposite. Earth did not have an atmosphere or oxygen. Only helium and nitrogen were present. When Earth was first formed, it was hit by a continuous stream of rocks from space. These rocks collided with Earth and as a result, immense heat was generated from these collisions, causing the rocks to melt. At this moment, radioactive elements on the Earth also released a lot of heat, causing heavier elements such as iron and nickel to sink deep into the centre of the Earth to form its core. The layer surrounding the core is the mantle, which is in a partially molten state. About 4 billion years ago, the Earth's surface cooled and solidified to form the topmost layer, which is called the crust. The crust was broken down into several rock fragments, called tectonic plates that float on the mantle. These plate moved past each other causing them to collide and causing friction. This built up pressure under the crust, which led to volcanic eruptions that caused cracks on the Earth's surface.

When this happens, Gases, such as hydrogen, nitrogen and water vapour burst through the cracks in the crust. These constant slowly led to the formation of the atmosphere. When the water vapour condensed to form clouds that enveloped the Earth and eventually brought rain. However, the Earth's surface was so hot that the rainwater evaporated immediately. As the rains continued, the Earth began to cool and the volcanic activity decreased. Water poured down for thousands of years to fill up the huge pits and form the oceans. The rain also formed smaller bodies of water such as rivers and lakes. At high attitude, the water froze and fell as snow. the snow melted and flowed down the mountain as streams and rivers.