What is Pacific Ocean?
{{Five Oceans|Pacific Ocean}} [[File:Pacific elevation.jpg|thumb|left|A map of the Pacific Ocean. It is ringed by many [[volcano]]es and oceanic [[trench]]es.]] The '''Pacific Ocean''' is the body of [[water]] between [[Asia]] and [[Australia]] in the west, the [[Americas]] in the east, the [[Southern Ocean]] to the south, and the [[Arctic Ocean]] to the north. It is the largest named [[ocean]] and it covers one-third of the surface of the entire world. It joins the [[Atlantic Ocean]] at a line drawn [[south]] from Cape Horn, [[Chile]]/[[Argentina]] to [[Antarctica]], and joins the [[Indian Ocean]] at a line drawn south from [[Tasmania]], [[Australia]] to Antarctica. As the Atlantic slowly gets wider, the Pacific is slowly shrinking. It does this by folding the sea floor in towards the centre of the [[Earth]] - this is called [[subduction]]. This bumping and grinding is hard so there are many [[earthquake]]s and [[volcano]]es when the [[wikt:pressure|pressure]] builds up and is quickly released as large [[explosion|explosions]] of hot [[Rock (geology)|rocks]] and [[dust]]. When an earthquake happens under the sea, the quick jerk causes a [[tsunami]]. This is why tsunamis are more common around the edge of the Pacific than anywhere else. Many of the Earth's volcanoes are either [[island]]s in the Pacific, or are on [[continent]]s within a few hundred [[kilometer]]s of the ocean's edge. [[Plate tectonics]] are another reason which makes Pacific Ocean smaller. == Other websites == {{commons category|Pacific Ocean}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20000815231325/http://www.epic.noaa.gov/epic/ewb/ EPIC Pacific Ocean Data Collection Viewable] on-line collection of observational data * [http://dapper.pmel.noaa.gov/dchart/ NOAA In-situ Ocean Data Viewer] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211015453/http://dapper.pmel.noaa.gov/dchart/ |date=2006-02-11 }} plot and download ocean observations * [https://web.archive.org/web/20010701033128/http://floats.pmel.noaa.gov/floats/ NOAA PMEL Argo profiling floats