The enormous 64 million square mile ocean that keeps shrinking every year

71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water (Image: Getty)

An astonishing 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water, with oceans holding about 96.5 percent of the planet's supply.

The world's major seas number five, and include the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Southern Oceans.

Of these, the Pacific is by far the largest, occupying 32 percent of the Earth’s surface.

Extending from the western coasts of North, Central, and South America to Oceania, Asia, and Russia in the north - the Pacific covers 63,800,000 square miles.

The Spice Islands are famous for their volcanoes and palm-lined beaches. (Image: Getty)

It has twice the surface area and more than twice the volume of water as the second largest, the Atlantic.

Interestingly, the area covered by the Pacific exceeds that of all the continents combined.

The Pacific Ocean or Mare Pacificum, meaning “peaceful sea,” was dubbed so by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1520 after his treacherous journey to find the “Spice Islands” in eastern Indonesia.

Today they are called the Maluku Islands, and are famous for their volcanoes and palm-lined beaches.

The Pacific also boasts the deepest recorded point in the world, located east of the Philippines.

White chimneys at Champagne vent site, NW Eifuku volcano. (Image: Getty)

The Challenger Deep, situated in the Mariana Trench at a depth of 11,034 m (36,201 ft, is so deep that Mount Everest would fit into it by over a mile.

Another distinctive feature of the Pacific is the so-called "Ring of Fire".

The Ring of Fire is an arc of volcanic islands and deep trenches located in the western Pacific, in the area where two tectonic plates collide, sliding under each other.

Due to this phenomenon, the Pacific Ocean basin is currently shrinking by about 2.5 cm (1 in) per year on three sides, averaging about 0.52 square kilometres (0.20 square miles) per year.

Because tectonic plates move so rapidly, earthquakes occur all along the Ring of Fire.

It is no surprise that the strongest earthquakes ever recorded have occurred here. The 1960 earthquake near Valdivia, Chile, was the most powerful in recorded history, registering a magnitude of 9.5 on the Richter scale.

Scientists believe that the Pacific Ocean, which began shrinking millions of years ago, will disappear in less than 300 million years.

"Everything seems to suggest that the Pacific will close," Dr João Duarte said to IFLScience. "The solution is that another ocean has to open, and that may well be the Indian, or even an ocean that may split Africa and Eurasia."