Features
The Southern Ocean lies in the Southern Hemisphere. It has typical depths of between 4,000 and 5,000 m (13,000 to 16,000 ft) over most of its extent with only limited areas of shallow water. The Antarctic continental shelf appears generally narrow and unusually deep, its edge lying at depths up to 800 m (2,600 ft), compared to a global mean of 133 m (436 ft).
Equinox to equinox in line with the sun's seasonal influence, the Antarctic ice pack fluctuates from an average minimum of 2.6 million square km (1.0×106 sq mi) in March to about 18.8 million square km (7.2×106 sq mi) in September, more than a sevenfold increase in area.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current moves perpetually eastward — chasing and joining itself, and at 21,000 km (13,000 mi) in length — it comprises the world's longest ocean current, transporting 130 million cubic m of water per second (4.6×109 cu ft/s) — 100 times the flow of all the world's rivers.
The Southern Ocean's greatest depth of 7,236 m (23,737 ft) occurs at the southern end of the South Sandwich Trench, at 60°00'S, 024°W.
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Famous quotes containing the word features:
“Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy his similes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)