Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean must be determined to an excellent degree: the largest in size, with the deepest depths, the richest in flora and fauna, and the like. And everything will be correct. Occupying 49,5% of the surface of the World Ocean and containing 53% of its water volume, the Pacific Ocean is the largest on the planet. From east to west, it extends more than 19 thousand km and 16 thousand - from north to south. The latest research in 2011 gives the maximum value of depth - 10994 m with an accuracy of ± 40 m.

Pacific Ocean must be determined to an excellent degree: the largest in size, with the deepest depths, the richest in flora and fauna, and the like

The Pacific Ocean lies between Asia and Australia, on the one hand, and the Americas on the other. In the south and the north, the Pacific Ocean borders on the Southern (Antarctic) and with the Arctic Ocean. The area of this huge water basin occupies more than a third of the total area of the Earth. And, can you believe that just five hundred years ago, Europeans did not even know about the existence of the Pacific Ocean? All sailors and cartographers were sure that beyond the Sea of Darkness, as informally referred to then Atlantic, there is just an Asian beach. After all, even Columbus believed for a long time that he sailed to the sparsely populated shores of the "Katai" - China. And only then did he learn that before him was a new continent, blocking the way to India, which should lie in the South Sea. But where is the passage to this South Sea? The first to discover this passage was seafarer Fernand Magellan. It's hard to imagine that until 1914 the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific was just one: around South America. The ships marched in a twisting and stony Magellanic Strait or bypassed Tierra del Fuego, and then, passing Cape Horn, through the Drake Pass, they emerged from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean.

On August 15, 1914, the first vessel passed into the Pacific by another route: the Panama Canal, just built. Its length is 81,6 km, 16,4 km of which are laid along the bottom of the Panamanian and Limansk bays. The channel width is more than 100 m and the depth is about 13,5 m.

The Pacific Ocean consists of such seas: the Bali Sea, the Banda Sea, the Bering Sea, the East China Sea, the Yellow and Coral, the Moluccas Sea, the New Guinea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Sea of Sava, the Seram Sea, Solomonovo, the Sulu Sea, Tasmanovo, the Fiji Sea, the Philippine Sea, the Sea Flores , South China, Japan, Java.

Several thousand islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean were formed by volcanic eruptions. Some of these islands were overgrown with corals, and eventually the islands again plunged into the sea, leaving after themselves coral rings - atolls. In the Pacific Ocean are the second and third largest islands of the Earth: New Guinea (829,3 thousand km2) and Kalimantan (735,7 thousand km2);

11% of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean occupy the mid-oceanic ridges represented by the South Pacific and East Pacific uplifts. They are wide, slightly dissected elevations. The lateral branches branch out from the main system in the form of the Chilean uplift and the Galapagos rift zone.

The climate of the Pacific Ocean is formed due to the zonal distribution of solar radiation and the circulation of the atmosphere, as well as the powerful seasonal influence of the Asian continent. Almost all climatic zones can be distinguished in the ocean.

The share of the Pacific Ocean accounts for more than 50% of the total biomass of the World Ocean. Life in the ocean is abundant and diverse, especially in the tropical and subtropical zones between the coasts of Asia and Australia, where huge areas are occupied by coral reefs and mangroves. Phytoplankton of the Pacific consists mainly of microscopic unicellular algae, numbering about 1300 species. The fauna of the Pacific Ocean is 3-4 times richer in species composition than in other oceans, especially in tropical waters. In the Indonesian seas, more than 2000 species of fish are known, in the northern seas there are only about 300.

The study and development of the Pacific began long before the appearance of the written history of mankind. For swimming on it junks, catamarans and simple rafts were used. The 1947 expedition on a raft of balsa logs "Kon-Tiki" under the guidance of the Norwegian Taur Heyerdahl proved that it is possible to cross the Pacific Ocean in a western direction from the central part of South America to the islands of Polynesia.

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