Natural Hazards
Icebergs can occur at any time of year throughout the ocean. Some may have drafts up to several hundred m; smaller icebergs, iceberg fragments and sea-ice (generally 0.5 to 1 m thick) also pose problems for ships. The deep continental shelf has a floor of glacial deposits varying widely over short distances.
Sailors know latitudes from 40 to 70 degrees south as the "Roaring Forties", "Furious Fifties" and "Shrieking Sixties" due to high winds and large waves that form as winds blow around the entire globe unimpeded by any land-mass. Ship ice, especially in May to October, makes the area even more dangerous. The remoteness of the region makes sources of search and rescue scarce.
Read more about this topic: Southern Ocean
Famous quotes containing the word natural:
“It has no share in the leadership of thought: it does not even reflect its current. It does not create beauty: it apes fashion. It does not produce personal skill: our actors and actresses, with the exception of a few persons with natural gifts and graces, mostly miscultivated or half-cultivated, are simply the middle-class section of the residuum.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)