9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1.9-10 NIV
The earth created in verse 1 is covered with dark water we are told in verse 2. Add light in verse 3, and then in verse 6 add what is variously translated space, an expanse, sky or air. That's where we are here in verse 9. There are periods of light and there is space between the waters, but we still have a planet covered with water. Then God calls the waters into one place so the dry land can appear.
Of course we know that water will naturally lay itself out flat in the lowest place possible, so why wasn't the water already gathered? Given that gravity is foundational to creation, to physics, planet formation, this surely wasn't God calling the water down from being heaped over mountain tops. A reasonable explanation is that the great plates of the earth's crust move; the sea floor sinks as mountains rise up and volcanoes spew.
Voilà! Dry land.
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Footnote: Check this out from Psalm 104 in the New American Standard translation.
5 He established the earth on its foundations,
So that it will not be moved forever and ever.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters were standing above the mountains.
7 At Your rebuke they fled;
At the sound of Your thunder they hurried away.
8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down
To the place which You established for them.
9 You set a boundary [for the waters] that they may not cross over,
So that they will not return to cover the earth.
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