Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica.

Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica.

The Drake Passage is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn and Antarctica. It forms part of the Southern Ocean. The Drake Passage has some of the worst sea weather in the world. It is named after 16th century English explorer Sir Francis Drake, although ironically, he never passed through this route, opting for the less turbulent Strait of Magellan. Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica File links The following pages link to this file: Drake Passage User:Geo Swan Categories: GFDL images ... Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica File links The following pages link to this file: Drake Passage User:Geo Swan Categories: GFDL images ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... Drake Passage - Orthographic projection File links The following pages link to this file: Drake Passage User:Geo Swan Categories: GFDL images ... Drake Passage - Orthographic projection File links The following pages link to this file: Drake Passage User:Geo Swan Categories: GFDL images ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... Cape Horn from the South, January 2003 Cape Horn is often said to be the southernmost point of South America. ... Sir Francis Drake, c. ... The Strait of Magellan, near Punta Arenas The Strait of Magellan is a navigable route immediately south of mainland South America. ...

The first recorded voyage through the passage was that of the Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten in 1616. Willem Cornelisz Schouten (1567?-1625) was a Dutch navigator. ...

The 400 mile-wide passage is the shortest crossing from Antarctica to the rest of the world's land. The boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is sometimes taken to be the shortest distance from Cape Horn to Snow Island (160 miles north of mainland Antarctica). Alternatively the meridian that passes through Cape Horn may be taken as the boundary. Both boundaries lie entirely within the Drake Passage. The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of its surface. ... Snow Island (62º47´S 061º23´W) is a completely ice-covered island, 16 km (10 mi) long and 8 km (5 mi) wide, lying 6 km (4 mi) southwest of Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands. ...

The passage is entirely open water, except for the very small Diego Ramirez Islands about 50 km (30 mi) south of Cape Horn. There is no land anywhere around the world at the latitudes of the Drake Passage, which is important in allowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to carry the huge volume of water (about 600 times the flow of the Amazon) through the Passage and round Antarctica. Diego Ramirez Islands Diego Ramirez Islands The Diego Ramirez Islands (Sp. ... The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is an ocean current that flows from west to east around Antarctica. ...

Located at 55 degress south latitude, the passage is undoubtably the source of the sailors' maxim that "Below 40 degrees, there is no law. Below 50 degrees, there is no God."

Ships in the passage are often good platforms for the sighting of whales, dolphins and plentiful seabirds including Giant Petrels, other Petrels, Albatrosses and Penguins. Whales are the largest species of exclusively aquatic mammals, members of the order Cetacea, which also includes dolphins and porpoises. ... Genera See article below. ... Species (Gmelin, 1789) (Mathews, 1912) The giant petrels are two large seabirds from the genus Macronectes. ... The petrels are seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. ... Genera Diomedea Thalassarche Phoebastria Phoebetria The albatrosses are seabirds in the family Diomedeidae, which is closely allied to the procellarids, storm-petrels and diving-petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). ... Genera Aptenodytes Eudyptes Eudyptula Megadyptes Pygoscelis Spheniscus Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) are an order of flightless birds living in the southern hemisphere. ...

Older references refer to the passage as the Drake Strait.

External links

• National Oceanography Centre, Southampton page of the important and complex bathymetry of the Passage
• A personal story describing crossing the Passage
• A NASA image of an eddy in the Passage
• Larger-scale images of the passage from the US Navy (Rain, ice edge and wind images)