Pacific ocean is the largest ocean in the whole world, covering 32 % of the Earth’s total surface area and about 46% of the Earth’s water. It also has the largest number of coral species. It stretches to the Bering Sea in the north and the Southern ocean to the South, in the west are the continents of Australia and Asia and on the east the Americas. The world’s deepest point, The Challenger deep in the Mariana Trench (eastern boundary of the Filipine tectonic plate), reaching a depth of 35,850 feet is located in the Pacific ocean. It also has the southern hemisphere’s deepest point- The Horizon deep in the Tonga Trench at a depth of 35,509 feet. It also has many marginal seas-

1. South China sea
2. East China sea
3. Sea of Japan
4. Sea of Okhotsk
5. The Philippine sea
6. Coral sea
7. Solomon sea
8. Tasman sea
9. Yellow sea

The word Pacific means ‘Peaceful’ though the ocean is anything but peaceful. The Pacific ocean has the ‘Pacific Ring of fire’, the largest ring of active volcanoes and earthquake zone in the world. The Japanese Islands and The Philippines islands are a result of volcanic activity. The Pacific ocean has the largest number of islands (around 25,000) including the island groups of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia (he largest- stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand) and the world’s largest archipalego- The Indonesian islands, an island groups of around 17,500 islands. It also has the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef(2,300 km) along the eastern coast of Australia and The Coral Sea islands, atolls present to the west of the barrier reef. The temperature decreases longitudinally going towards the poles, though the temperate region has the highest temperature. There also exist latitudinal variations depending upon the oceanic currents. Salinity also varies latitudinally as well as longitudinally with temperature. High temperature zone have high salinity. Addition of fresh water lowers the salinity. The ocean currents also lead to intermixing of currents thereby lowering the salinity. The highest surface salinity occurs in the southeastern zone and the lowest salinity occurs in the extreme northern zone of the Pacific.

This is something about the largest and one of the most majestic oceans in the world.

Kindly note: Use the acronym PAISA to remember names of the 5 type of oceans:

1. Pacific
2. Atlantic
3. Indian
4. Southern/Antarctic
5. Arctic