Facts About The Pacific Ocean Floor

The pacific ocean is 15 times larger than america.

Facts about the pacific ocean floor.

In fact it has been said that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the deeper ocean trenches. As seawater makes its way through layers of salt it forms little depressions on the ocean floor. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. Atolls are coral islands in the ocean which are surrounded by a lagoon.

At 165 250 000 square kilometers 63 800 000 square miles in area as defined with an antarctic. 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 ocean is like an entirely separate world. It is known as the apex predator of the ocean.

Three quarters of this planet is covered by water bodies with the biggests ones being the five oceans the atlantic pacific southern indian and arctic oceans. There are trenches mountains volcanos and lakes and rivers. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. As atolls are only found in warm ocean water the southern most atoll are the coral sea islands to the west of the barrier reef in australia.

The pacific ocean is the largest and deepest of earth s oceanic divisions. We know very little about the deep ocean floor and the life it holds due to the depth and the difficulties this creates for scientists. To shine a light on the hidden depths of one of nature s great marvels we ve put together 16 interesting facts about the pacific ocean. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur.

Historical pacific ocean facts show us that tasman c1603 c1659 was the first man to achieve the feat of entering the south pacific from the west and sailing round australia. Most of the world s atolls are situated in the pacific ocean. The ocean is home to a wide range of animals some of which are found only and only in the pacific ocean. For instance the orca or the killer whale is found only in pacific ocean.

The trenches around the edges of the eastern pacific ocean are shallower than are those of the western pacific. At a time when many european explorers were sailing into the waters and losing their lives he was a rare phenomenon. The ocean floor covers 70 of the earth s surface. Below you can see a lagoon in fiji.

Here are 15 crazy facts about the ocean floor. The pacific ocean is the biggest body of water on the planet it s home to more species and creatures than anywhere else and yet we still don t know all that much about it.