Indian Ocean, body of salt water covering approximately one-fifth of the total ocean area of the world. It is the smallest, geologically youngest, and physically most complex of the world’s three major oceans. It stretches for more than 6,200 miles (10,000 km) between the southern tips of Africa and Australia and, without its marginal seas, has an area of about 28,360,000 square miles (73,440,000 square km). The Indian Ocean’s average depth is 12,990 feet (3,960 metres), and its deepest point, in the Sunda Deep of the Java Trench off the southern coast of the island of Java (Indonesia), is 24,442 feet (7,450 metres).
The Indian Ocean, with depth contours and undersea features.
The Indian Ocean is bounded by Iran, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh to the north; the Malay Peninsula, the Sunda Islands of Indonesia, and Australia to the east; Antarctica to the south; and Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to the west. In the southwest it joins the Atlantic Ocean south of the southern tip of Africa, and to the east and southeast its waters mingle with those of the Pacific Ocean.
Island resort in the Maldives, north-central Indian Ocean.© Spectrum Colour Library/Heritage-Images
The question of defining the oceanic limits of the Indian Ocean is complicated and remains unsettled. The clearest border and the one most generally agreed upon is that with the Atlantic Ocean, which runs from Cape Agulhas, at the southern tip of Africa, due south along the 20° E meridian to the shores of Antarctica. The border with the Pacific Ocean to the southeast is usually drawn from South East Cape on the island of Tasmania south along the 147° E meridian to Antarctica. Bass Strait, between Tasmania and Australia, is considered by some to be part of the Indian Ocean and by others to be part of the Pacific. The northeastern border is the most difficult to define. The one most generally agreed upon runs northwest from Cape Londonderry in Australia across the Timor Sea, along the southern shores of the Lesser Sunda Islands and of Java, and then across the Sunda Strait to the shores of the island of Sumatra. Between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula the boundary is usually drawn across the Singapore Strait.
The lighthouse at Cape Agulhas, South Africa.Dewet
There is no universal agreement on the southern limit of the Indian Ocean. In general (and for the purposes of this article), it is defined as extending southward to the coast of Antarctica. However, many—notably in Australia—consider the portion closest to Antarctica (along with the corresponding southern extensions of the Atlantic and Pacific) to be part of the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean. Australians often call the entire expanse south of that continent’s south coast the Southern Ocean.
The Indian Ocean has the fewest marginal seas of the major oceans. To the north are the inland Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The Arabian Sea is to the northwest, and the Andaman Sea to the northeast. The large gulfs of Aden and Oman are to the northwest, the Bay of Bengal is to the northeast, and the Great Australian Bight is off the southern coast of Australia.
Great Australian Bight Marine Park, southern Australia.Nachoman-au
The Indian Ocean differs from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in several other respects. In the Northern Hemisphere it is landlocked and does not extend to Arctic waters or have a temperate-to-cold zone. It has fewer islands and narrower continental shelves. It is the only ocean with an asymmetric and, in the north, semiannually reversing surface circulation. It has no separate source of bottom water (i.e., the Indian Ocean’s bottom water originates outside its boundaries) and has two sources of highly saline water (the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea). Below the surface layers, especially in the north, the ocean’s water is extremely low in oxygen.
Physiography and geology
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Origin
The origin and evolution of the Indian Ocean is the most complicated of the three major oceans. Its formation is a consequence of the breakup, which began about 180 million years ago, of the southern supercontinent Gondwana (or Gondwanaland); by the movement to the northeast of the Indian subcontinent (beginning about 125 million years ago), which began colliding with Eurasia about 50 million years ago; and by the western movement of Africa and separation of Australia from Antarctica some 53 million years ago. By 36 million years ago, the Indian Ocean had taken on its present configuration. Although it first opened some 140 million years ago, almost all the Indian Ocean basin is less than 80 million years old.
Volcano erupting on the island of Réunion, western Indian Ocean.© Beboy/Fotolia
Submarine features
Oceanic ridges and fracture zones
The oceanic ridges consist of a rugged, seismically active mountain chain that is part of the worldwide oceanic ridge system and still contains centres of seafloor spreading in several places. The ridges form an inverted Y on the ocean floor, starting in the upper northwest with the Carlsberg Ridge in the Arabian Sea, turning due south past the Chagos-Laccadive Plateau, and becoming the Mid-Indian (or Central Indian) Ridge. Southeast of Madagascar the ridge branches: the Southwest Indian Ridge continues to the southwest until it merges into the Atlantic-Indian Ridge south of Africa, and the Southeast Indian Ridge trends to the east until it joins the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge south of Tasmania. Most striking is the aseismic (virtually earthquake-free) Ninetyeast Ridge, which is the longest and straightest in the world ocean. First discovered in 1962, it runs northward along the 90° E meridian (hence its name) for 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from the zonal Broken Ridge at latitudes 31° S to 9° N and can be traced farther under the sediments of the Bay of Bengal. Other important meridional aseismic ridges include the Chagos-Laccadive, Madagascar, and Mozambique plateaus, which are not part of the global oceanic ridge system.
The fracture zones of the Indian Ocean offset the axis of the oceanic ridges mostly in a north-south direction. Prominent are the Owen, Prince Edward, Vema, and Amsterdam fracture zones along the ridges, with the immense Diamantina Fracture Zone found to the southwest of Australia.
Seamounts
Seamounts are extinct submarine volcanoes that are conically shaped and often flat-topped. They rise abruptly from the abyssal plain to heights at least 3,300 feet (1,000 metres) above the ocean floor. In the Indian Ocean, seamounts are particularly abundant between Réunion and Seychelles in the Central Indian Basin and the Vening Meinesz group near Wharton Basin. Bardin, Kohler, Nikitin, and Williams seamounts are examples.
Aerial view of an island in the Maldives.Lawson Wood/Corbis
Ocean basins
Ocean basins are characterized by smooth, flat plains of thick sediment with abyssal hills (i.e., features that are less than 3,300 feet high) at the bottom flanks of the oceanic ridges. The Indian Ocean’s complex ridge topography led to the formation of many basins that range in width from 200 to 5,600 miles (320 to 9,000 km). From roughly north to south they include the Arabian, Somali, Mascarene, Madagascar, Mozambique, Agulhas, and Crozet basins in the west and the Central Indian (the largest), Wharton, and South Australia basins in the east.
Continental rise, slope, and shelf
The continental shelf extends to an average width of about 75 miles (120 km) in the Indian Ocean, with its widest points (190 miles [300 km]) off Mumbai (Bombay) on the western coast of India and off northwestern Australia. The island shelves are only about 1,000 feet (300 metres) wide. The shelf break is at a depth of about 460 feet (140 metres). Submarine canyons indent the steep slope below the break. The Ganges (Ganga) and Indus rivers of Asia and the Zambezi River of Africa have all carved particularly large canyons. Their sediment loads extend far beyond the shelf, form the rises at the foot of the slope, and contribute to the abyssal plains of their respective basins. The Ganges sediment cone is the world’s widest and thickest.
Trenches
The Indian Ocean has the fewest trenches of any of the world’s oceans. The narrow (50 miles [80 km]), volcanic, and seismically active Java Trench is the world’s second longest, stretching more than 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from southwest of Java and continuing northward as the Sunda Trench past Sumatra, with an extension along the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The portion of that system adjacent to Sumatra was the centre of a massive undersea earthquake in 2004 (magnitude 9.1) that affected some 600 miles (1,000 km) of the associated fault zone. A series of devastating tsunamis generated by the quake swamped coastal towns, particularly in Indonesia, and reached to the northern end of the Bay of Bengal and as far as the Indian Ocean’s western shores.
Additional Media
More about Indian Ocean
- formation (in ocean basin: Evolution of the ocean basins through plate movements)
- Indian government (in India: Islands)
- monsoon (in climate change: Amplification of the Indian Ocean monsoon)
- ocean currents (in Monsoon Current)
- ocean distribution (in ocean: Relative distribution of the oceans)
- ancient (in European exploration: The exploration of the coastlines of the Indian Ocean and the China Sea)
- Portugal (in India: The Portuguese)
- Zheng He (in Zheng He)
Additional Reading
External Links
Britannica Web sites
Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- Indian Ocean - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
Long before the larger Atlantic and Pacific oceans had been well explored, the Indian Ocean was a bustling region of travel and trade. More than 2,000 years ago, traders sailed the ocean to exchange goods between India, Africa, and Arabia.
- Indian Ocean - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
Two thousand years ago mariners would venture on only the most cautious coastal voyages along the Atlantic coast. The Indian Ocean, however, had well-established trade routes. Sailors struck boldly across the Arabian Sea from Arabia to India. Arabian merchants traded with the east coast of Africa. Indian traders, colonists, and priests carried their civilization to the East Indies.
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