Table of Contents
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean basin on Earth, covering more than 155 million square kilometers (60 million square miles) and averaging a depth of 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).
How many miles long is the Pacific ocean?
The Pacific Ocean stretches from the Bering Strait near the Arctic Circle to the shores of Antarctica through 135° of latitude, some 9,600 miles (15,500 km). The mean depth of the Pacific (excluding adjacent seas) is 14,040 feet (4,280 metres), and its greatest known depth is 36,201 feet (11,034 metres).
Is the Pacific ocean the size of 5 moons?
The longest stretch of the Pacific Ocean, from the Indonesian islands to the coast of Columbia, is more than 12,300 miles across. That’s longer than five Moons placed side by side. The Pacific Ocean is so deep and so wide that it contains approximately 441 million cubic miles of water.
How big is the Pacific ocean compared to the US?
Pacific Ocean is 17 times as big as United States At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million square kilometers), it is the world’s third- or fourth-largest country by total area.
Why is Pacific Ocean so big?
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the world ocean basins. The Pacific basin is referred to as the “Ring of Fire” due to intense earthquake and volcanic activity occurring near areas of tectonic plate subduction (where one tectonic plate is forced under another).
Is Pacific deeper than Atlantic?
But just how deep is the Mariana Trench? First off, here are the average depths of the earth’s oceans; the Arctic Ocean is 1,038 meters (3,407 feet) deep, the Indian Ocean is 3,960 meters (12,990 feet) deep, the Atlantic Ocean is 3,339 meters (10,955 feet) deep and the Pacific Ocean is 4,188 meters (13,740 feet) deep.
Who owns the Pacific ocean?
Although the oceans are technically viewed as international zones, meaning no one country has jurisdiction over it all, there are regulations in place to help keep the peace and to essentially divide responsibility for the world’s oceans to various entities or countries around the world.
Is the Pacific ocean larger than Mars?
The Pacific Ocean is even larger, with an area of roughly 169,200,000 km2. The dimensions of Mars also gives it a volume approximately equal to 1.6318×1011 km2 and a mass approximately equal to 6.4185×1023 kg. That’s only about 15.1% and 10.7% that of the Earth’s, respectively.
What’s bigger moon or Pacific Ocean?
At its widest point, from Indonesia all the way to Colombia, the Pacific Ocean is wider than the moon, by quite a lot. This expanse of ocean is 12,300 miles across, which is more than five times the diameter of the moon.
What is the smallest ocean in the world?
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world’s five ocean basins. A polar bear walks on the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean. The freezing environment provides a home for a diverse range of creatures. With an area of about 6.1 million square miles , the Arctic Ocean is about 1.5 times as big as the United States.
What is the deepest ocean?
The average ocean depth is 2.3 miles . The deepest part of the ocean is called the Challenger Deep and is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench, which runs several hundred kilometers southwest of the U.S. territorial island of Guam.
How old is the Pacific ocean?
Geological history. The Pacific Ocean was born 750 million years ago at the breakup of Rodinia, although it is generally called the Panthalassa until the breakup of Pangea, about 200 million years ago. The oldest Pacific Ocean floor is only around 180 Ma old, with older crust subducted by now.
How many gallons are in the Pacific ocean?
The ocean contains 352 quintillion gallons of water!Dec 4, 2020.
Who discovered Pacific Ocean?
Explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the Pacific Ocean in the 16th Century. Covering approximately 59 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth, the Pacific is by far the largest of the world’s ocean basins.
Do planes fly over the Pacific?
The primary reason airplanes don’t fly over the Pacific Ocean is because curved routes are shorter than straight routes. Whether a commercial airline is flying from the United States to Asia or elsewhere, it will have the fastest and most fuel-efficient flight by performing a curved rout.
What is the warmest ocean?
The area of the Pacific Ocean, 63.8 million square miles, is about twice that of the Atlantic, at 31.8 million square miles. The waters of the Pacific Ocean comprise the world’s largest heat reservoir, by far, and it is the warmest ocean, overall, of the world’s five oceans.
How many trenches are in the Pacific ocean?
Of the Earth’s 20 major trenches, 17 are found in the Pacific basin, a vast area rimmed by trenches of both marginal and island arc varieties. Marginal trenches bound the west coast of Central and South America from the Gulf of California to southern Chile.
What temp is the Pacific ocean?
There is a pronounced difference in temperature and salinity between the surface and deep zones of the Pacific. The deep zone, which contains about 80 percent of the ocean’s volume, has relatively stable temperature and salinity patterns; its average temperature is 38.3 °F (3.5 °C).
