Pacific Ocean

Description

The Pacific Ocean covers about one third of the Earth's surface, over 180 million square kilomters. It approximates a large circle, though a little squashed on the northeast and southwest. To its north and east are the American continents, to its south Antarctica, to its southwest Australia (part of Oceania), and to its west and north Asia, both mainland and insular. It is separated from the Arctic Ocean by a line across the Bering Strait from Cape Dezhneva¹ in Chukotska² to Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Drake Passage, lying between Tierra Fuego island at the bottom of South America and the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica. An alternate connection is north of the island--the Straits of Magellan. A man-made connection was added in the 20th century near the southern end of North America: the Panama Canal. Separating the Pacific from the Indian Ocean is more problematic. By all definitions the Pacific reaches to eastern Tasmania, eastern Australia, eastern and northern New Guinea, the north of the Celebes,³ northern Borneo⁴ and the Asian mainland from the Malay Peninsula on north. And everyone agrees the Pacific stops at a line drawn south of Tasmania, Australia, to Antarctica.⁵ I'm following the tradition that the Timor Sea is part of the Indian Ocean; others allocate it to the Pacific. Everyone allocates the Arafura Sea to this ocean and all agree that the Sawu⁶ Sea is part of the Indian. Thus the line continues along the south coasts of the Lesser Sunda Islands and Java,⁷ and the east coast of Sumatra.⁸ The Strait of Malacca and the Singapore Strait separate the Pacific Ocean from the Indian's Andaman Sea.

Side bodies of the Pacific not already mentioned are the Bering Sea, the Tasman Sea, the Coral Sea (and its arm the Solomon Sea), the Torres Strait, the Halmahera Sea, the Ceram Sea, the Banda Sea, the Molucca Sea, the Flores Sea, the Bali Sea, the Bali Strait, the Celebes Sea, the Makassar Strait, the Java Sea, the Sunda Strait, the Balabac Strait, the Sulu Sea, the Sibutu Passage, the Karimata Strait, the Serasan Strait, the South China Sea, the Luzon Strait, which includes the Bashi Channel, the Philippine Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the Yellow Sea, the Korea Strait Western Channel, the Sea of Japan and the La Perouse Strait that connects the Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk.

The ocean bottom beyond these side seas is generally at least 4000 meters deep. In the northwest are a series of trenches: the Aleutian, Kuril, Japan, Yap and Mariana. The last--at Challenger Deep--reaches down more than 11 thousand meters. In the southwest is the Kermadec-Tonga Trench. The Northwest Pacific Basin is bounded east by the Emperor Seamounts and the Hawaiian Ridge, south by the Mid-Pacific Mountains and west by the South Honshu and Kuril Ridges and Honshu Island. The Hawaiian Ridge includes the Hawaiian Islands, the South Honshu Ridge some of the minor Japanese Islands and the Kuril Ridge the Kuril Islands. The Mid-Pacific Ridge includes Marcus⁹ and Wake islands. Much of the eastern and central Pacific is sliced by a series of west-east fracture zones. The East Mariana Basin is east of the Marianas Ridge and islands, south of the Mid-Pacific Ridge, west of the Marshall Seamounts and islands, and north of the Caroline Seamounts and islands. It is almost divided by the Magellan Seamounts. East of the Marshall Seamounts and south of the Mid-Pacific Ridge is the Central Pacific Basin. It is bounded east by ridges that include Johnston Atoll and the northern Line Islands, south by troughs and southwest by the Gilbert Seamounts and islands. South of the Caroline Seamounts are the West and East Caroline Basins, separated by the Eauripik-New Guinea Rise. West of these are the Palau Islands; east is the Kapingamarangi Rise, and south the Bismarck Archipelago and New Guinea. Southeast of the East Mariana Basin, south of the Marshall Seamounts and east of the Kapingamarangi Rise the depths are surrounded by the Gilbert Ridge and islands, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands Ridge. The North Fiji Plateau and the South Fiji Basin face Tuvalu (north); Fiji, the South Fiji (or Lau) Ridge and the Kermadec Ridge and islands (east); North Island of New Zealand (south); and the Norfolk Island Ridge (west). They are separated by Hunter Ridge and a trench. The Samoa Basin is separated from the Penhryn Basin by the Manihiki Plateau. The Samoa Basin lies between Samoa and the Tokelau Island and the Penhryn between the Tokelaus and the southern Line Islands. To their south are Tuamotu and Austral Ridges and the southern Cook Islands. Beyond those highlands is the Southwest Pacific Basin. It is bounded west by the South Fiji and Kermadec Ridges, New Zealand, the New Zealand Plateau (which includes some minor islands of New Zealand) and the Macquarie Ridge and islands. To its northeast is the south end of the East Pacific Ridge and to its south and east is the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. The Peru Basin is east of the East Pacific Ridge, north of the Eastern Island Fracture Zone (which includes some Chilean island possessions), northwest of the Nasca Ridge and south of the Colon-Ecuador (or Carnegie) Ridge. Also east of the East Pacific Ridge is the Guatemala Basin, which reaches central America eastward and the Cocos Ridge southward. South of the Cocos Ridge and north of the Colon-Ecuador Ridge, and facing the junction of the two Americas, is the Panamá Basin. South of the Nasca Ridge is the Chile Basin which stops southward at the Chile Rise. West of it is the Roggevin Basin. The remainder of the Pacific, the Southeast Pacific Basin, is southeast of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge.

Large Pacific islands not already specifically mentioned and not entirely within the side seas are Honshu, Hokkaido, Sakhalin, South Island of New Zealand, and--until recently almost entirely within permanent ice--Alexander Island west of the Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica.

Currents flow clockwise in the north and equatorial south, and counter clockwise in the south and the equatorial north.

The Wilmington Oil Field that is mostly under Long Beach, California (U.S.A.) extends under the adjacent San Pedro Bay.

Around the area

north, within the ocean
north and northeast
east from Cobb Seamount
east from south of Cobb Seamount
east from Mendocino and Murray Fracture Zones
east from the Molokai Fracture Zone and west of the Gulf of Cortez
east from the Clarion Fracture Zone and east of the Gulf of Cortez
east northeast from the Clarion Fracture Zone
north and northeast from the Tehuantepec Fracture Zone
northeast from the Guatemala Basin
north from the Panamá Basin
east from the Panamá Basin
east from the Colon-Ecuador Ridge
east from the Peru Basin
east of the Chile Basin and Chile Rise
east from the center of the Southeast Pacific Basin
south, east of 74 degrees west
south, between 120 and 74 degrees west
south, betweeen 160 east and 120 degrees west
south, between 160 and about 147 degrees east
west from the Macquarie Ridge
south from the southwest of the South Fiji Basin
west from the Norfolk Island Ridge and south of the smaller islands of Oceania
northwest of the Coral Sea Basin
south of the East Caroline Basin
south of the West Caroline Basin
southwest of the West Caroline Basin
west of the the south of the West Caroline Basin
southwest of the part of the ocean north of Halmahera Island
west of the part of the ocean north of Halmahera Island
west of the Yap and Marianas Ridges
west of the center of the Northwest Pacific Basin
west of the southwest of the Sea of Okhotsk
northwest of the Northwest Pacific Basin

Around the part of the Pacific Ocean between the South China Sea and the Java Sea
north
northeast
east
southeast
southwest
west
northwest

In the center of the sea:
at or south of the Mid-Pacific Mountains, at or southwest of the Hawaiian Ridge, at or west of the Northwest Christmas Island and Tuamatu Ridges, north of the South-West Pacific Basin, east of the Tasman and Coral Seas, and at or east of the Palau-Yap and Marianas Ridges

west from the center of the Southwest Pacific Basin

Footnotes

1. Or Dezneva, with a diacritical on the z.
2. Or Cukotska, with a a diacritical on the c.
3. Sulawesi in Indonesian
4. Kalimantan in Indonesian
5. Or almost everyone. Some argue that there is a "Southern Ocean" south of 40 degrees south latitude. Others would confine this ocean to the area between Australia and Antarctica. Many do not count it as an ocean.
6. Or Savu
7 Jawa in Indonesian
8. Sumatera in Indonesian
9. Minami Tori in Japanese.