Clipperton Fracture Zone
![Major Pacific trenches (1–10) and fracture zones (11–20). The Clipperton Fracture Zone is the nearly horizontal line No. 15 below the Clarion Fracture Zone (14), and the Middle America Trench is the deep-blue line No. 9.](/Images/godic/202501/05/Pacific_elevation21332.jpg")
The Clipperton Fracture Zone is a geological submarine fracture zone of the Pacific Ocean, with a length of some 4500 miles (7240 km). It is one of the five major lineations of the northern Pacific floor, south of the Clarion Fracture Zone, discovered by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1950. The fracture, an unusually mountainous topographical feature, begins east-northeast of the Line Islands and ends in the Middle America Trench off the coast of Central America. It roughly forms a line on the same latitude as Kiribati and Clipperton Island. The fracture can be divided into four distinct parts: