The Strait of Gibraltar is located between southernmost Spain and northwest Africa. It is an important gateway connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, with a total length of about 90 kilometers. The narrowest point of the gorge is only 14 kilometers, and the widest point where it enters the gorge in the west is 43 kilometers; the water depth is 301 meters at the shallowest point, 1181 meters at the deepest point, and the average depth is about 375 meters; the sea flows from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. The flow speed is 4 kilometers per hour. In the early years, it was used by Atlantic navigators. Expedition fleets from countries along the Mediterranean Sea frequently passed here to reach the Atlantic Ocean to complete their expeditions. Today, the Strait of Gibraltar is still an important waterway from the Atlantic Ocean to southern Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.
Geographic location map of the Strait of Gibraltar
The Strait of Gibraltar is only 58 kilometers long, 43 kilometers wide between Cape Trafalgar and Cape Spartel, and only 13 kilometers wide between Marroquillo in Spain and Cape Sires in Morocco. . The average water depth is 310 meters.
In addition to connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the Strait of Gibraltar is also the "source of life" of the Mediterranean Sea. It turns out that at a depth of 122 meters in the Mediterranean Sea, there is a heavier, colder and saltier ocean current that continuously flows westward out of the Mediterranean Sea. After reading this, you may ask, if this continues, won’t the Mediterranean Sea become dry? Indeed, it is. However, nature has its own laws, and the Mediterranean Sea will not dry up. The Strait of Gibraltar continuously replenishes the Mediterranean Sea with seawater. It turns out that the wind direction in the Strait is mostly easterly or westerly. The cold air mass entering the western Mediterranean from the north passes through here as a low-level, high-speed easterly wind. The locals call this easterly wind the Levant wind. Levantine winds drive the Atlantic surface current eastward through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean Sea, and the flow of this current is greater than the westward current in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 122 meters. Therefore, the existence of the Strait of Gibraltar has saved the Mediterranean from becoming a shrinking salt country, and its contribution is not small.
The name Gibraltar originates from Arabic and means "Taliq Mountain". According to legend, in 711 AD, Tariq, an officer of the Moorish dynasty, led a team of 7,000 people across the sea to attack Spain. After Tariq's army forcibly landed, Tariq stood on a giant rock in Gibraltar and commanded the battle, defeating 100,000 Spanish troops. Tariq then ordered the construction of Gibraltar Castle here. The name of the Strait of Gibraltar comes from the city of Gibraltar.
animal tags：
you may also like
There are 6 rows of knotted thorns on the tail of the American ray. The healing part of the kissing cartilage is shorter than the separation part. There are more than 40 teeth in both jaws. The front part of the body disc is rhomboid, and it is concave on the rostral side and the posterior an...
The common name of Jiajiri fish: golden towel. There are 8 black-edged blue-purple horizontal bands on the side of the body, with both ends of the bands slightly bent backwards. Body length 14 cm. Distribution areas: South China Sea; Taiwan waters, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and western Pacific tr...
The body of the sicklefish is very flat and tall, almost round. The head is short and pointed. The snout is prominent and tubular. The teeth are thin, pointed, and bristly. There are bony spines on both sides of the front and upper side of the eye. The dorsal knot has 7 fin spines. The third...
Turtle is the general name for marine turtles. There are 5 species of marine turtles living in our country's oceans (there are only 7 species in the world), mainly distributed in the Xisha Islands and the port of Huidong County, Guangdong Province, followed by the coastal areas on the outskir...
In the history of the United Nations, a total of three conferences on the law of the sea have been held so far. The first time was held in Geneva from February 24 to April 27, 1958; the second time was held in Geneva from March 17 to April 26, 1960; and the third time was from December 3, 197...
In the northwest of the South China Sea in my country, there is a large, semi-enclosed bay called Beibu Gulf. It is bounded by my country's Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan Island to the east, my country's Guangxi Autonomous Region to the north, Vietnam to the west, and connected to the South Chi...
Penguins are a very unique group of birds that live in the Southern Hemisphere. Although they mainly inhabit marine environments, their breeding sites are mostly concentrated on land. Here is a detailed introduction to penguins as marine animals:Species and classification:scientific name:The scienti...
The side of the body of the Forked Butterflyfish is flat and high. The kiss is short. The body is weakly lamellar and the lateral line is incomplete. There is a black horizontal band on the head, and there are many brown vertical stripes along the body side. There are often bifurcations at th...
Email: jsset#163.com (change # to @) Please indicate your purpose of visit! Guangdong ICP No. 2022053326 XML| map| Chinese
