About our Pacific Ocean news
Latest news on the Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest ocean on Earth, covering more than 30% of the Earth's surface and holding more than half of the Earth's open water supply. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east.
The Pacific Ocean has a surface area of about 165,250,000 square kilometers (63,800,000 square miles) and a mean depth of about 4,280 meters (14,040 feet). The deepest point in the Pacific Ocean is the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, which reaches a depth of 10,928 meters (35,797 feet).
The Pacific Ocean is divided into two major parts by the equator: the North Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean. It can also be divided into four quadrants by the International Date Line: the Northeast Pacific, the Northwest Pacific, the Southeast Pacific, and the Southwest Pacific. The Pacific Ocean has many peripheral seas, such as the Philippine Sea, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Tasman Sea. The Pacific Ocean is also part of the Ring of Fire, a zone of volcanic activity and earthquakes that surrounds the ocean basin.
The Pacific Ocean was named by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, who called it Mar Pacífico, meaning 'peaceful sea', because he encountered calm waters after sailing through a stormy strait. The Pacific Ocean was first explored by Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, and later by other nations in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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