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Pacific Ocean
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Pacific Ocean

Written by
Joseph R. Morgan
Associate Professor of Geography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu. Coeditor of Atlas for Marine Policy in Southeast Asian Seas.
Joseph R. MorganAll
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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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The oceans tend to be stratified, the principal factor being temperature; the bottom waters of the deep parts are intensely cold, with temperatures only slightly above freezing. The surface zone, where temperature variations are perceptible, is between 330 and 1,000 feet (100 and 300 metres) thick. It is more compressed in the temperate eastern Pacific, along the coasts of North and Central America, where cold water appears at a shallower depth compared with the...

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