Ray Kato, age 8, of Huntington Beach, California, for his question:

How were the oceans formed?

Scientists are not quite sure how all that water got into the deep ocean basins. They do not agree how it happened. But all agree that the watery oceans have been there for ages. Maybe they were filled more than four billion years ago, soon after the young earth was born. Through the long ages they have changed and grown more salty. Sometimes the sea levels were higher, sometimes lower. .Sometimes seawater flooded large tracts of land    and then went back home to the oceans.

Some scientists think that the newborn earth was seething hot and all wrapped up in a dense blanket of thick, soupy clouds. They think that later the dense clouds deluged down enough rain to fill up the oceans. Other scientists suspect that the newborn earth was cool, with all that water locked and hidden inside. They think that this ground water gradually gushed out and ran down the slopes to fill up the deep, hollow ocean basins.