50 Interesting Facts About The Pacific Ocean
1. Over 1.1 billion years ago, there was a supercontinent called Rodinia that included the lands we now know as Australia, Antarctica, the Americas, South China, Greenland, Siberia, and West Africa. It broke up after 350 million years which led to the formation of the early Pacific Ocean.
2. Land masses and oceans shift continuously because of plate tectonics. According to scientists, the Pacific Ocean shrinks annually by 0.52 square kilometers. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Ocean is increasing in size each year.
3. The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest body of water. Its borders include the Arctic Ocean to the north and the continent of Antarctica to the south. It is bound by Asia and Australia to the west and the Americas to the east.
4. In reality, all of the world’s oceans are connected with each section given its own name only for convenience. The Pacific Ocean is connected to the Indian Ocean via the Straits of Malacca in the west and to the Atlantic Ocean via the Straits of Magellan in the east.
5. The Pacific Ocean covers about a third of the Earth’s surface at 165 million square kilometers. It is even bigger than all of the world’s land area combined which is only 148 million square kilometers.
6. Its widest section goes from Indonesia to Columbia which is around 19,800 km. This length is roughly five times longer than the moon’s diameter and almost twice the circumference.
7. The ocean’s floor has an average depth of 4,270 meters. This is nearly the height of the famous Matterhorn in the Alps. The deepest part of the Pacific is in the Mariana Trench. At 10,928m below the surface, it is also the deepest place on Earth. Mount Everest pales in comparison at only 8,850m high.
8. Scientists estimate the total water volume in the Pacific to be about 714,000,000 cubic km. That’s about half of the world’s ocean water. The Atlantic Ocean has far less volume at only 310,000,000 cubic km.
9. There are over 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean with most of these found below the Equator. The biggest of these is New Guinea which also happens to be the world’s second largest island. The crown is held by Greenland which is in the North Atlantic Ocean.
10. The aptly named Ring of Fire is a region with hundreds of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. It happens to coincide with the rim of the Pacific Ocean and stretches for 40,000 kilometers. This includes the eastern coasts of the Americas, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and many islands of the western Pacific Ocean.
11. Surface water temperature varies depending on where you are in the Pacific. The coldest sections are near the Antarctic where it can go down to -1.4 degrees Celsius. This also happens to be the freezing point of sea water. Sail to the equator and you will get around 30 degrees Celsius.
12. The ocean is comprised of salt water that also changes in salinity depending on where you are. It tends to be saltier in the southeastern region than around the equator. Experts point to the high amounts of rain across the center of the ocean as the main reason for the lower salinity.
13. Scientists say that sea level has been rising at a rate of 10mm per year over the last 20 years. This has resulted in the disappearance of some small uninhabited Pacific islands around the Solomon Archipelago. Bigger inhabited islands are also losing their coastal lands and forcing people to move away.
14. The first human settlers in the Pacific came from Africa between 60,000 and 70,000 years ago. They went as far as New Guinea, the Philippines, and Australia using the ancient land bridges that have since gone under water.
15. It took time for humans to develop the earliest sailing technologies. The first seaborne migration in the Pacific happened between 3000-1500 BCE when people from Taiwan went to the Philippines. Later on, they also explored Indonesia, Malaysia, Palau, Marianas Islands, and Solomon Islands. Some even sailed as far as Madagascar in Africa.
16. Europeans did not see the Pacific until the 16th century. In 1512, Portuguese explorers Antonio de Abreu and Francisco Serrao entered via the western side en route to Moluccas in Indonesia. In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa approached from the east and called it Mar del Sur.
17. In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish crew became the first recorded group to cross the Pacific as part of their historic circumnavigation of the world. Magellan is responsible for naming the waters Mar Pacifico because he was lucky enough to sail in calm weather.
18. Spain eventually colonized the Philippines and other territories in the Pacific. They established one of the longest trading routes in history called the Manila Galleons. The ships sailed to Acapulco via the northern side of Pacific Ocean twice a year. They carried spices, porcelain, and other luxury goods.
19. From the 16th to the 20th centuries, imperialist countries competed for power in the Pacific. These included Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, Japan, and the United States. Most of their colonies have since declared independence.
20. Early maps reflect the era’s level of knowledge about the Pacific. In 1507, Martin Waldseemuller was the first to illustrate that the Americas were between two oceans. In 1529, Diogo Ribeiro was the first to show the Pacific’s proper size. In 1589, Abraham Ortelius came up with the first printed map that was dedicated to the Pacific Ocean.
21. The English biologist Charles Darwin boarded the survey ship HMS Beagle in the 1830s. It sailed around the world including the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific where he made many of the observations that led to the theory of evolution.
22. By the 1870s, Darwin’s theories were already considered as fact by the greater scientific community. More scientific explorations were launched including the first global marine research of the HMS Challenger. The lowest part of the Mariana Trench, Challenger Deep, was named after the ship.
23. Around the same time, the former warship USS Tuscarora was converted into a survey ship that was ordered to take soundings of the ocean floor in the Pacific. It discovered the depths of the Aleutian Trench and the Japan Trench.
24. In 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard became the first humans to dive into the bottom of the Mariana Trench aboard the bathyscape Trieste. Jacques is the son of the vessel’s designer Auguste Piccard.
25. In 1977, scientists made the first direct observations of hydrothermal vents around the Galapagos Rift. These are cracks on the seafloor near active volcanoes that discharge hot water. Scientists also found entire ecosystems that thrive in these extreme environments. Organisms such as shrimp, clams, and giant tube worms feed on bacteria and archaea.
26. In 2020, Walsh’s son Kelly also made the dive at the age of 52, 60 years after the initial journey. His group used a 12-ton two-passenger submersible called Limiting Factor to survey the depths and its inhabitants.
27. Japanese scientists have revived microbes that have been around for over 100,000,000 years. These were found dormant in the South Pacific seabed in a low nutrient environment. After incubation, the tiny organisms started to consume food and multiply. Lead scientist Yuki Morono said that the results demonstrate that the concept of a lifespan may not apply to simple living things.
28. Economically motivated explorations are plenty but mineral extraction is difficult to perform in the Pacific Ocean because of its depths. In shallower areas, companies are able to tap into reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Pearls are also obtained in great quantities although there are far less of them now. Fishing is also a massive industry but uncontrolled activities are destroying ecosystems.
29. The Pacific Ocean can be divided into two largely independent regions: the North Pacific in which currents move in a clockwise direction and the South Pacific in which currents move counterclockwise. This is due to the Coriolis Effect.
30. Hurricanes often form south of Mexico from June to December. Typhoons form over the northwestern Pacific affecting Southeast Asia from May to December. Tropical cyclones form in the south Pacific and wreak havoc on smaller island nations.
31. The strongest typhoon ever recorded was 1979’s Typhoon Tip which made landfall at southern Japan. It reached peak sustained winds of 305 kph and a wind diameter of 2,280 km.
32. The Pacific Blob is an area from Baja California to Alaska that experienced a severe marine heat wave between 2014 and 2016. It resulted in the growth of toxic algae which killed fishes and sea birds. Scientists also observed coral bleaching.
33. Oceans absorb of CO2 which makes the water more acidic. There has been a 30% increase of acidity in the last 200 years. This makes it harder to make shells for clams and corals that depend on calcium carbonate.
33. The giant squid can grow as long as 13 m or 43 ft making it one of the largest invertebrates. It is also among the most elusive creatures of the deep. In 2004, it was finally photographed in the wild off the coast of Tokyo.
34. The Pacific white-sided dolphin has a gray back and a white patch extending from the neck to its belly. Adults can weigh as much as 440 lbs and grow as long as 8.2 ft. Their natural habitat is the Northern Pacific.
35. The Humboldt penguin population is distributed along the pacific coasts of Chile and Peru. They nest on islands and rocky coastal areas. Adults can grow up to 70 cm and weigh almost 6 kg. They largely feed on schools of fish but some may also consume mollusks and crustaceans.
36. The dugong is a marine mammal that closely resembles manatees. It feeds on seagrass communities along warm coastal areas. This endangered species is mostly found in the Indo-West Pacific.
37. The Steller sea lion lives in the northern Pacific region from Russia to Alaska. These amphibians feed on fishes and cephalopods. They congregate on the beaches of isolated islands to avoid predators, reproduce, and raise pups.
0 Comments