When did the ocean surrounding Antarctica come into existence?
roughly 30 million years ago
Title: Southern Ocean
Passage: The Southern Ocean, geologically the youngest of the oceans, was formed when Antarctica and South America moved apart, opening the Drake Passage, roughly 30 million years ago. The separation of the continents allowed the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
Title: Walpole Wilderness Area
Passage: The Walpole Wilderness Area is a group of conservation reserves on the south coast of Western Australia. The area includes vast tracts of jarrah, tingle and karri forests surrounding granite peaks, rivers, heathlands, and wetlands. Coastal features include inlets and sandy beaches, sheer cliffs and the Southern Ocean.
Title: Antarctica
Passage: Small-scale "expedition tourism" has existed since 1957 and is currently subject to Antarctic Treaty and Environmental Protocol provisions, but in effect self-regulated by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). Not all vessels associated with Antarctic tourism are members of IAATO, but IAATO members account for 95% of the tourist activity. Travel is largely by small or medium ship, focusing on specific scenic locations with accessible concentrations of iconic wildlife. A total of 37,506 tourists visited during the 2006–07 Austral summer with nearly all of them coming from commercial ships. The number was predicted to increase to over 80,000 by 2010.
Title: West Indies
Passage: The West Indies or the Caribbean Basin is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Caribbean that includes the island countries and surrounding waters of three major archipelagoes: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago.
Title: Divergent boundary
Passage: In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially produce rifts which eventually become rift valleys. Most active divergent plate boundaries occur between oceanic plates and exist as mid-oceanic ridges. Divergent boundaries also form volcanic islands which occur when the plates move apart to produce gaps which molten lava rises to fill.
Title: Water distribution on Earth
Passage: Water is distributed across earth. Most water in the Earth's atmosphere and crust comes from the world ocean's saline seawater, while freshwater accounts for only 2.5% of the total. Because the oceans that cover roughly 78% of the area of the Earth reflect blue light, the Earth appears blue from space, and is often referred to as the blue planet and the Pale Blue Dot. An estimated 1.5 to 11 times the amount of water in the oceans may be found hundreds of miles deep within the Earth's interior, although not in liquid form.
Title: Antarctica
Passage: Antarctica (US English i/æntˈɑːrktɪkə/, UK English /ænˈtɑːktɪkə/ or /ænˈtɑːtɪkə/ or /ænˈɑːtɪkə/)[Note 1] is Earth's southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres (5,400,000 square miles), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km (1.2 mi; 6,200 ft) in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Title: Cameron River Volcanic Belt
Passage: The Cameron River Volcanic Belt is a Neoarchean volcanic belt near the Cameron River in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It contains pillow lavas about 2,600 million years old, indicating that great oceanic volcanoes existed during the early stages of the formation of the Earth's crust.
Title: Geological history of Earth
Passage: During the Eocene (56 million years ago - 33.9 million years ago), the continents continued to drift toward their present positions. At the beginning of the period, Australia and Antarctica remained connected, and warm equatorial currents mixed with colder Antarctic waters, distributing the heat around the world and keeping global temperatures high. But when Australia split from the southern continent around 45 Ma, the warm equatorial currents were deflected away from Antarctica, and an isolated cold water channel developed between the two continents. The Antarctic region cooled down, and the ocean surrounding Antarctica began to freeze, sending cold water and ice floes north, reinforcing the cooling. The present pattern of ice ages began about 40 million years ago.[citation needed]
Title: D'Urville Sea
Passage: D'Urville Sea is a sea of the Southern Ocean, north of the coast of Adélie Land, East Antarctica. It is named after the French explorer and officer Jules Dumont d'Urville.
Title: City of Benalla
Passage: The City of Benalla was a local government area about northeast of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city, which was completely surrounded by the Shire of Benalla, covered an area of , and existed from 1948 until 1994.
Title: Antarctica
Passage: Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean; alternatively, it may be considered to be surrounded by the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, or by the southern waters of the World Ocean. It covers more than 14,000,000 km2 (5,400,000 sq mi), making it the fifth-largest continent, about 1.3 times as large as Europe. The coastline measures 17,968 km (11,165 mi) and is mostly characterized by ice formations, as the following table shows:
Title: Charleston, South Carolina
Passage: Charleston is the oldest and second-largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston–Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline and is located on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, or, as is locally expressed, "where the Cooper and Ashley Rivers come together to form the Atlantic Ocean."
Title: Land
Passage: ``Land mass ''refers to the total surface area of the land of a geographical region or country (which may include discontinuous pieces of land such as islands). It is written as two words to distinguish it from the usage`` landmass'', the contiguous area of land surrounded by ocean. Earth's total land mass is approximately 148,939,063.133 km (57,505,693.767 sq mi) which is about 29.2% of its total surface. Water covers approximately 70.8% of Earth's surface, mainly in the form of oceans and ice formations.
Title: Opening of the North Atlantic Ocean
Passage: Rocks from the North Atlantic Igneous Province have been found in Greenland, the Irminger Basin, Faroe Islands, Vøring Plateau (off Norway), Faroe - Shetland Basin, Hebrides, Outer Moray Firth and Denmark. The supercontinent known as Pangea existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras and began to rift around 200 million years ago. Pangea had three major phases of breakup. The first major phase began in the Early - Middle Jurassic, taking place between North America and Africa. The second major phase of breakup began in the Early Cretaceous. The South Atlantic Ocean opened around 140 million years ago as Africa separated from South America, and about the same time, India separated from Antarctica and Australia, forming the central Indian Ocean. The final major phase of breakup occurred in the early Cenozoic, as Laurentia separated from Eurasia. As the two plates broke free from each other, the Atlantic Ocean continued to expand.
Title: Grüner See (Styria)
Passage: Grüner See (Green Lake) is a lake in Styria, Austria in a village named Tragöß. The lake is surrounded by the Hochschwab Mountains and forests. The name "Green Lake" originated because of its emerald-green water. The clean and clear water comes from the snowmelt from the karst mountains and has a temperature of . During winter, the lake is only deep and the surrounding area is used as a county park.
Title: Antarctica (band)
Passage: Antarctica was an American indie rock band from New York existing from 1995 until 1999, generally considered post-rock, shoegazing, or electronica, having been compared with early Cure. Their output consisted of two well-regarded releases, and individual members have been in other bands before and since Antarctica.
Title: Iselin Seamount
Passage: Iselin Seamount is a seamount in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica. It was named for the research ship "Iselin II" of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the name being approved by the Advisory Committee for Undersea Features in February 1964.
Title: United States Exploring Expedition
Passage: The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones. Funding for the original expedition was requested by President John Quincy Adams in 1828, however, Congress would not implement funding until eight years later. In May 1836, the oceanic exploration voyage was finally authorized by Congress and created by President Andrew Jackson.
Title: Flag of Bequia
Passage: The unofficial flag of Bequia is composed of three black waves, which stand for Bequia Channel, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; and a black humpback whale, Bequia's main icon, surrounded by a black-and-white border around the flag.
Southern Ocean Antarctica