Notes from the Field - The Pacific or “Peaceful” Ocean (2024)

FAQs

Notes from the Field - The Pacific or “Peaceful” Ocean? ›

They navigated through the Atlantic Ocean and around the tip of South America after which they came across an unfamiliar ocean. He called this ocean 'pacific' which means peaceful. Unbeknownst to them, they still had a long journey to the Spice Islands. You can learn more about the voyage of Magellan and his crew here.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean on Earth. It spans 60 million square miles from California to China, and in certain regions extends tens of thousands of feet below the surface of the water.

Since the Pacific Ocean covers more of the equatorial area than any other, it is sometimes cited as the calmest ocean, overall. The old mariners who named it seem to have had a sense of this, for 'Pacific' means peaceful.

The Pacific Ocean or Mare Pacificum, meaning “peaceful sea,” was dubbed so by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1520 after his treacherous journey to find the “Spice Islands”, now known as the Malaku Islands in eastern Indonesia.

The South American Pacific coastline includes Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Asian countries that border the Pacific are Russia, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia.

For most of Magellan's voyage from the Strait of Magellan to the Philippines, the explorer indeed found the ocean peaceful; however, the Pacific is not always peaceful. Many tropical storms batter the islands of the Pacific. The lands around the Pacific Rim are full of volcanoes and often affected by earthquakes.

The word pacific refers to people, actions, and ideas that are peaceful. Pacific actions promote and create peace. A pacifist is a person who opposes all wars, and that word can help you remember that pacific things are also peaceful. All pacific things are done in a peaceful way or help the cause of peace.

The Pacific Ocean is the world's largest ocean. It is also called the “peaceful sea” or Tepre Pacificum in Latin. This name was given by Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who discovered it. Pacific Ocean covers the area from the North Pole to the South Pole, which shows the magnitude of its area.

The Weddell Sea, Antarctic Peninsula

The Weddell Sea has been claimed by scientists to have the clearest waters of any ocean in the world.

After braving perilous seas and navigating through what are now known as the Straits of Magellan, his small fleet entered an unfamiliar ocean in November 1520. He called this body of water pacific, due to the calmness of the water at the time ('pacific' means peaceful).

What is the largest ocean kids? ›

The Pacific Ocean is the world's largest ocean. It covers about a third of the Earth. The Pacific Ocean stretches from the continents of Asia and Oceania on the east, to North and South America on the west. It also stretches across both sides of the Equator, which is shown in this picture by the red dotted line.

Qidong City, east China's Jiangsu Province, is located at the confluence of the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Yangtze River. A dam in the city stands as a barrier between the yellow sand- and silt-laden water of the Yellow Sea and the blue hue of a man-made bay, creating a two-color waterscape.

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.

Covering approximately 63 million square miles and containing more than half of the free water on Earth, the Pacific is by far the largest of the world's ocean basins. All of the world's continents could fit into the Pacific basin.

The Pacific Ocean is a 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 America and South America on the east.

Answer: The Pacific Ocean is the largest of all the oceans covering almost one-third of the earth's surface. It is also the deepest ocean with many deep trenches. This ocean also has many big and small islands like New Zealand, Japan, Philippines etc.

The Pacific matters to us all, for our climate and food security. The Pacific makes up half of the Earth's Ocean, is home to more marine species than any other ocean basin on the planet, and provides 70% of the global fish catch.

The Pacific is the largest of Earth's oceans. It covers more of Earth's surface than all the dry land put together. The explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the ocean El Mar pacifico, which means “the peaceful sea.”