Submitted by: Submitted by angelicabieber
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Category: Other Topics
Date Submitted: 02/29/2016 01:44 PM
PACIFIC OCEAN
The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean. It is also the largest single geographic feature on Earth. The Pacific Ocean is the deepest ocean - its average depth is 12,927 feet. According to the CIA World Fact book, the Pacific Ocean covers 60,060,894 square miles, making it about 15 times the size of the United States. The Pacific Ocean is bounded by 84,297 miles of coastline, with the western coast of Canada and the U.S. and South America to the east, the coasts of Asia, and Australia to the west, and the more newly-designated (2000) Southern Ocean to the south. The Pacific Ocean is also the ocean with the most islands - it contains over 30,000 islands. There is also a hotbed of earthquake and volcanic activity around the Pacific, known as the "Ring of Fire".
A large underwater ridge, known as the East Pacific Rise, runs along the bottom of the ocean. This is one portion of the mid-ocean ridge system that occurs on the ocean floor where plates of the Earth's surface move apart and new oceanic crust is formed.
Its vast size and range in habitat types makes the Pacific Ocean home to many different kinds of marine life, including whales, dugongs, pinnipeds, sea turtles, fish, invertebrates and plankton.
ATLANTIC OCEAN
The Atlantic Ocean is smaller and shallower than the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded by North and South America to the west, Europe and Africa to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north and the Southern Ocean to the south. It covers 29,637,974 square miles (making it about 6 times the size of the United States) and is bounded by 69,510 miles of coastline.
One large underwater feature of the Atlantic Ocean is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a plate boundary in the Earth's crust that runs down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Like the Pacific Ocean, it is difficult to list the marine life that live in the Atlantic, because of its large size and diversity of habitats. Whales, sirenians such as manatees, pinnipeds, sea turtles, pinnipeds, fish,...