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 earthquakes and volcanoes when the pressure builds up and is quickly released as large explosions of hot 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 islands in the pacific, or are on continents within a few hundred kilometers of the ocean's edge. plate tectonics are another reason which makes pacific ocean smaller.