GEOGRAPHY
Indian Ocean, that is distinguished for its dimensions relatively reduced in comparison to the one of the Oceano Pacífico or of the Oceano Atlântico, he/she extends in its largest part in Southern hemisphere and it is closed to the north by Asia. Broadly open to the south, under influence of the Asian Monsoon, he/she has the form of a triangle, whose medium lines are formed for number oceanic, disposed in an inverted Y. Its medium depth is of 3.897 m and the maxim, of 7.455 m (fossa of Java).
The dynamics of the waters of Indian Ocean is more complex than in the other oceans. The southern system (to S of 10th of latitude S) it is characterized regularly by the distribution zonal of the winds, of the temperatures (of the air and of the water), of the salinity and of the superficial currents. The system monçônico occupies the north portion of Indian Ocean. Its motor is the seasonal investment of the Monsoon winds. In the winter, the trade winds blow of NE in direction to the convergence intertropical, creating a superficial circulation comparable to the one of the other oceans. In the summer, the hot and humid winds and you urged (hurricanes), atraídos for the low Asian pressures, provokes a reaquecimento and a partial dessalinização of the waters, as well as an acceleration of the currents that you/they go predominantly for east (current of the Southwest Monsoon).
Indian Ocean is distinguished for the weak productivity of the surface waters, deprived of changes vertical revitalizantes. The elevated temperature of the waters favors the development of reefs and of coralline platforms, sowed of atolls (Maldives, Chagos, Laquedivas, Seychelles, Comoros). In the outlet of the great deltas, the rich waters in material in suspension maintain a productivity regional high HISTORY starting from the century XV (Vasco of Gama), the marine civilizations (Egyptian, fenícios, Chinese and Arabs) they were modified by the introduction of the colonial trade and for the implantação of established feitorias for the Portuguese, Dutch, British and French. The current commercial routes are it bases exporters. The route of India was substituted by the route of the Cable, that gives vazão to the hidrocarbonetos of the golf Pérsico.
For UN, Indian Ocean includes the Channel of Mozambique, the Red Sea, the Golfo Pérsico, the Sea of Arabia, the Golf of Flare, Ilhas Andamã's Sea and the Great Australian Bay; to the south, its limit is the parallel 60, among the meridians of the cable of the Needles (South Africa) and of the cable of Tasmânia (Australia). Thirty six countries litorâneos supplies marine access the other eleven countries without exit for the sea.
The resources of that ocean are the petroleum and minérios as the platinum, the manganese, the vanádio and the chromium, only found in Southern Africa and in old USSR. In reason of that enormous wealth, Indian Ocean became objective of great interest for the industrialized western countries and Japan, especially worried with the extraction and the transport of the raw material. The wealth of Indian Ocean was ignored at that time of the cold war, so much it is that the objective to be protected, on the North American side, was just the access to the Golfo Pérsico. Nor the USA nor old USSR judged necessary to create a fleet in Indian Ocean, being satisfied in sending naval posses of questionable importance, just to assure bases and anchorages. Later the USA ended for creating a strong intervention in Middle East: Central Command (I Command Central).
The one that the USA and old USSR didn't let to do went take sides in all the local conflicts in lathe of that ocean: Southern Africa, Guide Close, Golfo Pérsico, Afghanistan, Southern Asia, Indochina. Attributing those conflicts to the foreign naval presences, the countries litorâneos for its time adopted in a General Assembly of the United Nations the resolution " Indian Ocean, peace " zone, of December 16, 1971, that " suggested to the great potencies the elimination of bases, war ships and military airplanes in the ocean ".
India, that it was instituted as spokesperson of the countries litorâneos, would have the effective control of north Indian Ocean consequently - of the marine routes, therefore - thanks to its Navy that, with 110.000 t, it is Friday of the world and the most powerful of the area.