Friday, February 12, 2010

The Atlantic Versus The Pacific Ocean

In England in the Summer when you surf and then go out, you get a crust of salt on your face and in your hair. In Peru you don't.

In England you float more in the sea than you do in Peru.

My conclusion was that there was more salt in the Atlantic than the Pacific.



I began researching, because I wanted to know more what the differences and foilables were, here is what I discovered:

1) Size.
The Atlantic is the second largest ocean in the world, but over half the rivers flow in to it. The Pacific is the biggest ocean in the world. It's bigger than all the land put together.

2) Age.
The Atlantic is the youngest ocean formed during the Jurassic Period as South America and Africa pulled apart. It is growing by an inch a year. The Pacific Ocean is currently shrinking from plate tectonics, roughly  0.2 square miles a year.

3) Deepest point.
8500 metres is its deepest point in the Atlantic, the Puerto Rico Trench. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the Pacific and in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres.

4) Physical facts.
The Atlantic is home to the largest tides in the world, 50 feet on a spring tide in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. The North Atlantic Ridge is a mountain range, in terms of Longitude it covers 10 000 miles and is twice as wide as the Andes. This chain is home to Iceland, the Azores, the Canaries and Tristan De Cuna.

 The Pacific contains about 25,000 islands (more than the total number in the rest of the world's oceans combined). “The Ring of Fire” is the world’s largest belt of explosive volcanism. It is on average the deepest ocean without the inhibiting amount of continental shelf of the Atlantic.



5) Salinity.
The Atlantic is the world’s saltiest ocean and it is at its saltiest in the North Atlantic where it is 37 parts salt to a thousand parts of water.
 The Pacific averages about 34 parts salt to water, but its highest areas of salinity is in equatorial areas.

6) Name?
Probably Atlantis, the Island described by Plato instead of a popular theory that the Romans named it in connection with the Atlas Mountains (it makes no sense to me.)
 The Pacific = “Peaceful sea” so named by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

7) Local Variations.
The Atlantic sees the sprouting of Hurricanes off  West Africa which reek havoc in Caribbean areas.

The Pacific suffers from the El Nino Effect which sees a reversing of its wind and sea currents every 4 to seven years with devastating effects.

8) Early Navigators.
 The Pacific was settled and explored by Polynesians getting all the way down to the Chatham islands, south of New Zealand, which forced them back into a hunter gatherer lifestyle perversely.
 The Vikings were the kings of the Atlantic, getting to Canada a long time before Columbus's jaunt ruined Meso America.

Did you know?
Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio, Brazil is the other half of Lion’s Head in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Mariana Trench is over 3000 metres deeper than Mount Everest is high.

In 1938, a coelacanth, a type of fish that first appeared in the sea some 300 million years ago, was caught alive by the fishermen off the Southern coast of Africa. These fishes were thought to be extinct for more than 60 million years.

The Atlantic is home to most oceanic firsts such as crossings by ships and planes.

Here endeth my discoveries.

1 comment:

  1. What do you mean Sugar Loaf is the other half of the Lion's Head? I don't understand. Bond

    ReplyDelete