Floor Of The Pacific Ocean

This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level.

Floor of the pacific ocean. Currently the oldest known pacific ocean floor is about 180 million years old. There s a mystery lurking in the pacific ocean just off the coast of big sur california. In terms of its geology the area encompassing the pacific ocean is sometimes called the pacific ring of fire. What is this 2 5mile long object moving under the pacific ocean.

Be careful when interpreting this diagram and others like it because in order to show the various features clearly the vertical axis is exaggerated in this case by about 200 times. A topographic profile of the pacific ocean floor between japan and british columbia is shown in figure 18 3. The region has this name because it is the world s largest area of volcanism and earthquakes. The pacific ocean was born 750 million years ago at the breakup of rodinia although it is generally called the panthalassic ocean until the breakup of pangea about 200 million years ago.

Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. The oldest pacific ocean floor is only around 180 ma old with older crust subducted by now. A massive circular structure has been spotted slowly crawling across the pacific sea floor 3000 feet below the surface. The pacific ocean evolved in the mesozoic from the panthalassic ocean which had formed when rodinia rifted apart around 750 ma the first ocean floor which is part of the current pacific plate began 160 ma to the west of the central pacific and subsequently developed into the largest oceanic plate on earth.

The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. The trenches around the edges of the eastern pacific ocean are shallower than are those of the western pacific. Pacific ocean body of salt water extending from the antarctic region in the south to the arctic in the north and lying between the continents of asia and australia on the west and north and south america on the east. How deep is the pacific ocean the pacific is not only the biggest but also the deepest ocean with the deepest trenches.

The mariana trench the world s deepest submarine de pression is more than 11 000m below sea level in some parts about 7 000m below the mean depth of the ocean floor.