nications: stations--1 AM, 1 FM, 1 TV; 1 Pacific Ocean INTELSAT
earth station

- Defense Forces
Note: defense is the responsibility of the US and that will not
change when the UN trusteeship terminates
----------------------------------------------------
Country: Pacific Ocean
- Geography
Total area: 165,384,000 km2; includes Arafura Sea, Banda Sea,
Bellingshausen Sea, Bering Sea, Bering Strait, Coral Sea, East China Sea,
Gulf of Alaska, Makassar Strait, Philippine Sea, Ross Sea, Sea of Japan,
Sea of Okhotsk, South China Sea, Tasman Sea, and other tributary water bodies

Comparative area: slightly less than 18 times the size of the US;
the largest ocean (followed by the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Arctic
Ocean); covers about one-third of the global surface; larger than the total
land area of the world

Coastline: 135,663 km

Climate: the western Pacific is monsoonal--a rainy season occurs during
the summer months, when moisture-laden winds blow from the ocean over the
land, and a dry season during the winter months, when dry winds blow from
the Asian land mass back to the ocean

Terrain: surface in the northern Pacific dominated by a clockwise, warm
water gyre (broad, circular system of currents) and in the southern Pacific by
a counterclockwise, cool water gyre; sea ice occurs in the Bering Sea and
Sea of Okhotsk during winter and reaches maximum northern extent from
Antarctica in October; the ocean floor in the eastern Pacific is dominated by
the East Pacific Rise, while the western Pacific is dissected by deep trenches;
the world's greatest depth is 10,924 meters in the Marianas Trench

Natural resources: oil and gas fields, polymetallic nodules, sand and
gravel aggregates, placer deposits, fish

Environment: endangered marine species include the dugong, sea lion,
sea otter, seals, turtles, and whales; oil pollution in Philippine Sea and
South China Sea; dotted with low coral islands and rugged volcanic islands in
the southwestern Pacific Ocean; subject to tropical cyclones (typhoons) in
southeast and east Asia from May to December (most frequent from July to
October); tropical cyclones (hurricanes) may form south of Mexico and strike
Central America and Mexico from June to October (most common in August and
September); southern shipping lanes subject to icebergs from Antarctica;
occasional El Nino phenomenon occurs off the coast of Peru when the trade
winds slacken and the warm Equatorial Countercurr