PHILIPPINE SEA

section of the western North Pacific Ocean, lying east and north of the Philippines. The floor of this portion of the ocean is formed into a structural basin by a series of geologic folds and faults that protrude above the surface in the form of bordering island arcs. The Philippine islands of Luzon, Samar, and Mindanao are on the southwest; Palau, Yap, and Ulithi (of the Carolines) on the southeast; the Marianas, including Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, on the east; the Bonin and Volcano islands (Iwo Jima) on the northeast; the Japanese islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu on the north; the Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa) on the northwest; and Taiwan (Formosa) in the extreme west. They surround an area measuring 1,800 miles (2,900 km) north-south by 1,500 miles east-west and occupying a total surface area of 40,000 square miles (1,000,000 square km), about 3 percent of the entire Pacific region. The basin, with a general depth of 19,700 feet (6,000 m), plunges to its greatest depths in trenches to the east of the island arcs. The deepest is the Philippine Trench at 34,578 feet (10,539 m). Numerous seamounts rise from the basin floor, some of which are volcanic; their peaks, often flat (called tablemounts, or guyots), are capped with coral. The warm Pacific North Equatorial Current flows westward across the southern part of the sea. On meeting the Philippines, the current divides; part swings north near Luzon to form the Kuroshio (q.v.; Japan Current), of which some will return to the sea as the Kuroshio Countercurrent, and part swings south as the Pacific Equatorial Countercurrent. These currents, together with areas near reefs, ridges, and seamounts, are the sites of fishing grounds. Typhoons, which become particularly strong in September, originate in the sea.