Geology Of The Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean evolved from the Panthalassic Ocean when Rodinia rifted apart around 750 million years ago. The first ocean floor which is part of the current Pacific Plate, began to the west of the central Pacific, subsequently developing into the largest oceanic plate on Earth.
The tectonic plates continue to move today. The slowest spreading ridge is the Gakkel Ridge on the Arctic Ocean floor which spreads at less that 2.5 cm/yr while the fastest, the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island, has a spreading rate of over 15 cm/yr.
Read more about Geology Of The Pacific Ocean: History, Geological Origins of The Pacific Islands, Andesite Line, Earthquakes
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or ocean:
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Who heeds the waste abyss of possibility? The ocean is everywhere the same, but it has no character until seen with the shore or the ship.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)