The Pacific Ocean represents the remnants of the biggest body of water in the planet's history.
Earth's current largest ocean, the Pacific, blankets more than 30% of the planet's surface, stretching 12,000 miles at its widest point, between Colombia and the Malay Peninsula, according to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO ). But that titanic sea represents only the remnants of the largest ocean in Earth's history.
Panthalassa would have stacked at least another 1,860 miles onto the Pacific's width, Murphy said. To put that into perspective, if you were traveling by jet plane across the equator, it would take 10 hours to cross the Pacific but 15 to span Panthalassa, he explained. Or think of it this way: At its widest point, the Pacific could fit more than five moon diameters; Panthalassa's additional width would accommodate nearly one more moon.
Visualizing Panthalassa as the Pacific padded with more than 1,800 extra miles captures the geological history, too: Pangaea broke up in large part due to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, at the expense of Panthalassa. Its remnants became the Pacific, so you can picture Panthalassa as the Pacific pasted onto the Atlantic, which today ranges between about 1,800 miles, between Brazil and Liberia, and 3,000 miles , between North America and North Africa, according to IOC-UNESCO.
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