SEAS OF THE WORLD

by tslp.sfc.wide.ad.jp/us/guidebook/07/07_e.htm

There was only one ocean and one continent on Earth 200 million years ago. The ocean had strong currents and a fairly uniform temperature. About 70 million years ago sections of this large land mass began splitting apart, eventually creating the continents and oceans we know today. New weather patterns developed as a result of interactions between the land and surrounding seas, which led to changes in ocean current patterns and water temperatures. These changes on land and at sea created barriers that restricted the movements of marine life from ocean to ocean. Over millions of years, endemic species developed resulting in an amazing variety of marine life from multicolored coral reef fish in the tropics, to organisms specially adapted for living under thick ice caps in polar waters. The Seas of the World gallery displays a sampling of marine life from around the world.

The North Pacific Ocean, The South Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth. Currents running along the equator form an invisible border between the North Pacific and the South Pacific.

In the North Pacific section of the aquarium, marine life is exhibited from the South China Sea which is washed by the warm Kuroshio (Japan) Current, the Hawaii an Islands, and the west coast of North America which is flushed by cold, nutrient rich currents. In each of these regions, fish and invertebrates can be found that live nowhere else in the world.

The South Pacific section highlights species ranging from the warm seas of the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia --the world's largest coral reef--to the cold waters off the coast of South America where the Peru Current brings cold water almost as far north as the equator.  

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