The mighty Indian Ocean is simply amazing. This endless expanse of water, spreading from horizon to horizon, for a long time frightened even the most courageous sailors. Its depths are still not fully understood, and there is every reason to believe that many more secrets are hidden in these waters. However, science does not stand still, and our knowledge base is increasing year by year.
Interesting facts about the Indian Ocean
- It washes as many as 4 continents – Australia, Antarctica, Africa and Asia.
- The Indian Ocean accounts for 20% of the entire water surface of the Earth.
- The area of the Indian Ocean is 10 times the area of the whole of Australia (interesting facts about Australia).
- The ancient Greeks, who knew its western part, called it the Eritrean Sea.
- The modern name of the ocean was in honor of India, whose shores it washes.
- It is in it that the famous Sargasso Sea is located.
- Destructive storms often rage in the Indian Ocean, although they still happen less often than in the Pacific (interesting facts about the Pacific Ocean).
- There are only 10 coastal seas in the Indian Ocean.
- The process of its formation began approximately 130-140 million years ago, after the Gondwana supercontinent broke apart.
- Primitive people crossed the Indian Ocean more than 50 thousand years ago (interesting facts about ancient people).
- Sometimes amazing luminous circles are observed on its surface. It is still not known exactly why they occur. Most likely, these are colonies of luminous plankton.
- In 2004, the strongest earthquake in the history of observations occurred in the Indian Ocean, killing more than 300 thousand people.
- The waters of the Indian Ocean wash the borders of 39 independent states and dependent territories of France and Great Britain.
- The average height of the tides in the Indian Ocean does not exceed 2-3 meters, but in some places it is much higher. So, in the port of the Australian city of Darwin, the ocean level rises by 8 meters at high tide, and near the Indian Mumbai – by almost 6 meters (interesting facts about Mumbai).
- The first European to cross the Indian Ocean was the Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo.
- Only 5% of the world’s fish catch comes from the Indian Ocean.
- Most often, sharks attack people in the waters and seas of this particular ocean.
- At the bottom of the Indian Ocean, near the island of Mauritius, there is a unique underwater waterfall that looks like a real one thanks to flowing sand.
- In the south of the Indian Ocean, near the coast of Antarctica, there is a high probability of meeting with drifting icebergs.
- The Red Sea, which is not not a single river flows into it, and which is the most transparent and saltiest sea in the world, is rapidly evaporating. But shallowing does not threaten him, since it is replenished by the waters of the Indian Ocean (interesting facts about the Red Sea).
- Among all the earth’s oceans, it is the Indian Ocean that is the warmest, if we take into account the average water temperature.
- It passes through all the climatic zones of the Southern Hemisphere.
- At the bottom of the Indian Ocean are huge mountain ranges that were discovered only about ten years ago.