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Marginal seas. v. t. e. The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
The Pacific is ringed by many volcanoes and oceanic trenches. The Pacific Ocean evolved in the Mesozoic from the Panthalassic Ocean, which had formed when Rodinia rifted apart around 750 Ma. The first ocean floor which is part of the current Pacific Plate began 160 Ma to the west of the central Pacific and subsequently developed into the ...
The umbrella term Pacific Islands has taken on several meanings. [1] Sometimes it is used to refer only to the islands defined as lying within Oceania. [2] [3] [4] At other times, it is used to refer to the islands of the Pacific Ocean that were previously colonized by the British, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, or Japanese, or by the United States.
Location of the Mariana Trench. The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about 2,550 km (1,580 mi) in length and 69 km (43 mi) in width. The maximum known depth is 10,984 ...
The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million km 2 (40 million sq mi), it is the largest tectonic plate. [2] The plate first came into existence as a microplate 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Izanagi Plates. The Pacific Plate subsequently grew ...
The West Coast of the United States – also known as the Pacific Coast, and the Western Seaboard – is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S. states of California, Oregon, and Washington, but it occasionally includes Alaska and Hawaii in bureaucratic ...
Kiritimati is one of the world's largest atolls in terms of land area, consisting of about 312.38 km 2 (120.61 sq mi) land area and a 328 km 2 (127 sq mi) network of lagoons;. [ 1 ] The atoll is about 150 km (93 mi) in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over 48 km (30 mi). [ 2 ] Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land ...
The North Pacific Gyre (NPG) or North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), located in the northern Pacific Ocean, is one of the five major oceanic gyres. This gyre covers most of the northern Pacific Ocean. It is the largest ecosystem on Earth, located between the equator and 50° N latitude, and comprising 20 million square kilometers. [1]