Indian Ocean Essay

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The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface.[1] It is bounded by Asia—including India, after which the ocean is named[2][3][4][5]—on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, by Antarctica.)[6] As one component of the World Ocean, the Indian Ocean is delineated from the Atlantic Ocean by the 20° east meridian running south from Cape Agulhas, and from the Pacific Ocean by the meridian of 146°55' east.[7] The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf. The ocean is nearly 10,000 km (6,200 mi) wide at the southern tips of Africa and Australia, and its area is 73,556,000 km² (28,350,000 mi²),[8] including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The ocean's volume is estimated to be 292,131,000 km³ (70,086,000 mi³).[9] Small islands dot the continental rims. Island nationswithin the ocean are Madagascar (the world's fourth largest island), Comoros, Seychelles, Maldives, Mauritius, and Sri Lanka. The archipelago of Indonesia borders the ocean on the east. The African, Indian, and Antarctic crustal plates converge in the Indian Ocean at the Rodrigues Triple Point. Their junctures are marked by branches of the mid-oceanic ridge forming an inverted Y, with the stem running south from the edge of the continental shelf near Mumbai, India. The eastern, western, and southern basins thus formed are subdivided into smaller basins by ridges. The ocean's continental shelves are narrow, averaging 200 kilometres (125 mi) in width. An exception is found off Australia's western coast, where the shelf width exceeds 1,000 kilometres (600 mi). The average depth of the ocean is 3,890 m (12,762 ft). Its deepest point is Diamantina Deep inDiamantina Trench, at 8,047 m (26,401

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