The Southern Ocean - Sea caves and fossils, Waterfall Bay
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The Southern Ocean
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Introduction
The Southern Ocean, which circles the globe without being blocked by land, is home to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the longest of the world's ocean currents. Also known as the "channel", it connects the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean basins and exerts a powerful influence over the Earth's climate. The ACC carries 150 times more water around Antarctica than the flow of all the world's rivers combined.
Sea caves and fossils, Waterfall Bay
Overview
Reaching up to 300m, Tasmania's sea cliffs are some of the highest in the world. Beneath the cliffs of Waterfall Bay is a vast network of underground caves carved out over several million years of constant pounding by the Southern Ocean.
Within this cave system fossils up to 300 million years old can be found that hold clues about the formation of Tasmania. The remarkable thing about the fossils found here is that they are exactly the same as specimens found in Antarctica. This suggests that Antarctica and Tasmania were once parts of the same land mass.
| Importance: | Geological discoveries made here suggest Tasmania and Antarctica were once parts of the same land mass. |
| Dive category: | This is a potentially hazardous cave dive which requires specialised cave dive training and considerable experience. |
| Access: | Advice should always be sought from local dive guides before attempting to dive the caves. Accessing this cave system can be extremely problematic. Often dangerous currents make it completely impossible. Some of the entrances can also be very narrow and should not to be attempted by divers without good buoyancy control. |
Interesting for
- Tasmania separating from Antarctica
- Greg Houseman from the Institute of Geophysics and Tectonics in Leeds has created an animation showing how the southern supercontinent split apart.
- Dispersal of Gondwanaland
- The sea caves of Waterfall Bay
- Eaglehawk Dive Centre's info about cave diving in Waterfall Bay.
- Waterfall Bay caves and canyons
BBC related content
- Oceans ultimate dives: Tooni Mahto's cave dive
- Oceans presenter biography: Paul Rose
- Oceans presenter biography: Tooni Mahto
- Oceans image gallery: The Southern Ocean
- Wild Down Under: Gondwana
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