Philippine Sea
The Philippine Sea is a section of the western Pacific Ocean, located to the east and north of the Philippines. It occupies a total area of around 5,726,000 square kilometers (2,700,000 square miles), or around 2.7 percent of the Pacific Ocean, stretching approximately 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) north-south and 2,300 kilometers (1,500 miles) east-west. The Philippine islands of Luzon, Samar, and Mindanao form the sea's southwest boundaries; Palau, Yap, and Ulithi form its southeast perimeter; the Mariana Islands, including Guam (U.S.), Saipan, and Tinian, mark its eastern limits; the Bonin and Volcano Islands lie to the northeast; Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu (Japan) bound it to the north; Okinawa's Ryukyu Islands (Japan) lie to the northwest; and Taiwan is to the west.
The deepest area of the sea is the Philippine Trench, at around 10,497 meters (34,438 feet), making it one of the world's deepest trenches. There are numerous seamounts, many of them volcanic mounts, rising from the sea floor and capped with corals. The warm Pacific North Equatorial Current flows across the southern part of the sea, making the Philippine Sea a great fishing ground. However, many typhoons originate in the sea and are particularly devastating in September and October.
Further Reading
Peive, A. V., ed. (1980) Geology of the Philippine Sea Floor. Moscow: Nauka.
Shiki, T., ed. (1985). Geology of the Northern Philippine Sea. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.
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