South ocean

What is the ocean? The ocean is the global water envelope of the Earth, which surrounds continents and islands. More than seventy percent (to be precise, 71%) of the earth's surface is covered by the world's oceans. What are the oceans? The continents and large islands divide the world ocean into five parts. On geographical maps, issued in the Russian Federation, you most likely will not find the Southern Ocean. However, in 2000 the International Hydrographic Union made a decision to divide the world's water space into five oceans. To the known to all the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Northern Arctic added the Southern Ocean. Why was he added to this list? Despite the fact that in the southern part of the border of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans are rather arbitrary, the waters adjacent to Antarctica have specific properties. However, it should be noted that the decision of the International Hydrographic Union was never ratified.

The Southern Ocean also sweeps the northern boundary, which is considered the zone of the Antarctic convergence (the zone of convergence of surface currents). Some ocean scientists believe that the physical boundaries of the Southern Ocean extend somewhat to the north, namely: along the arc from the southern part of Tierra del Fuego to South Africa. Its area is more than 76 million square kilometers, the largest measured depth of the South Sandwich Trench is about 8428 meters.

The first Southern Ocean was described in 1650 by the Dutch geographer B. Varenius. Later, already in the 18th century, the study of this region began.

In 1845, the London Royal Geographical Society proposed the entire space, which is bounded by the southern polar circle and extends to the Antarctic continent, called the Southern Arctic Ocean. The Southern Ocean in the documents of the International Hydrographic Organization was singled out in 1937 from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian, however, this was subsequently abandoned.

From the history of the study of the Southern Ocean, it is known that the first ship that crossed the southern Arctic Circle in 1559 was a Dutch ship under the command of Dirk Geieritz, who was part of the squadron of Jacob Magu. The ship D. Gereritsa in the Strait of Magellan after a violent storm lost sight of the squadron and went to the south. Having descended to about 64 ° south latitude, the team saw a high ground.

In 1772, the famous sailor D. Cook sailed from the UK to his first sea expedition to the southern hemisphere , and in the beginning of 1773 his two ships reached the southern polar circle. However, after a desperate battle with the ice, they turned back. A few months later, Cook again went to the Southern Ocean and on December 8, 1773 reached the southern polar circle, but the ship was covered with ice. However, he freed himself from the ice captivity and went further to the south. But again it was stopped by an impenetrable wall of ice, which did not allow to move on. In the second campaign to the South Pole, Cook twice crossed the southern Arctic Circle and was convinced that a huge number of ice mountains indicate that there should be a significant Antarctic continent further. His polar marine adventures in the expedition, he described so brightly and colorfully that no one, except the desperate whalers, for a long time dared to swim into those parts and investigate them.

In June 1819, Russian seafarers F. Bellingshausen and M. Lazarev took two military sloops from Kronstadt towards the Southern Ocean. In January 1820, they went beyond the southern polar circle, went along it to the east, in January 1821 discovered the islands of Peter I, and later - the Land of Alexander I. The expedition under the command of F. Bellingshausen for the first time made full voyage on small sailing Ships around Antarctica, discovered during this marine scientific expedition.