The totality of all ocean and sea waters washing Antarctica is allocated to the Southern Ocean by a number of scientists, although this The topic is still a fierce debate in the scientific community. However, in most cases, it is still isolated in a separate ocean, and, accordingly, some interesting facts can be told about it. However, due to inaccessibility and remoteness, these waters have not yet been properly explored.
Interesting facts about the Southern Ocean
- Its boundaries are still not clearly defined.
- The Southern Ocean usually includes the southern waters of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
- It is believed that it was formed about 30 million years ago, when a strait arose between Antarctica and South America, which subsequently expanded.
- The Southern Ocean was previously sometimes called the Arctic Ocean, by analogy with the Arctic Ocean (interesting facts about the Arctic Ocean).
- The deepest point of the Southern Ocean reaches 8264 meters. This is comparable to the height of the highest peaks of the earth like Kanchenjunga and Everest.
- For the first time, the Southern Ocean was presented on maps in the middle of the 17th century.
- For a long time, the latitude of the Antarctic Circle was considered its border.
- The coastline of the Southern Ocean reaches almost 18,000 kilometers. Actually, almost all of this figure is the length of the coastline of Antarctica (interesting facts about Antarctica).
- It is believed that the Southern Ocean includes 13 seas. By the way, in one of them, the Weddell Sea, the water is cleaner and more transparent than in any other sea on Earth.
- In Soviet times, the Southern Ocean was not recognized by Soviet cartography, but it became again included in atlases at the end of the last century.
- For the first time, the borders of the Southern Ocean were crossed in 1559 by the Dutch navigator Geeritz. The next visit of people to this region took place more than a hundred years later.
- The famous discoverer James Cook also crossed the borders of the Southern Ocean during his circumnavigation (interesting facts about Cook).
- Coastal waters The Southern Ocean is always frozen in winter.
- Some of the icebergs found here are up to 15 years old. It is believed that up to 200,000 icebergs with a length of 500 meters to 180 kilometers and a width of hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers can simultaneously be in the waters of the Southern Ocean.
- The total mass of krill, small crustaceans, in the Southern Ocean is estimated at about 2.2 billion tons.