70% of the Earth's surface is ocean, except for the four oceans, the rest are seas. In general, the waters at the junction of oceans and land are divided into different seas. In fact, there is also a sea within the ocean, the Sargasso Sea.
During the Age of Discovery, Columbus was the first to reach the sea, but they were trapped here for nearly a month, and finally escaped under the hard work of the entire crew.
It is said that the Sargasso Sea is the most dangerous sea in the world, and has historically left countless ships with no return. Is this really the case? What are the secrets of the Sargasso Sea?
The Sargasso Sea is a sea within the ocean, a sea region in the eastern United States located at the center of the North Atlantic circulation, with an average water depth of 4500 meters, about 3700 kilometers long and 1800 kilometers wide, and a sea area of about 6 million square kilometers. The famous Bermuda Triangle is part of the sea.
The Sargasso Sea is really beautiful because of its great transparency, with some areas up to 70 meters of transparency, and is recognized as the clearest sea in the world. In general, the transparency of tropical seawater is relatively high, but it is only about 50 meters, while the average transparency of sargasson seawater is 66 meters, which is unique in the world.
Beauty is beauty, but beneath the beautiful exterior lies danger. There are many destroyed shipwrecks in the area, which shows that many ships have been buried here.
So many ships are stranded here because the sea is full of seaweed and the sea is relatively calm and largely windless. In the Age of Discovery, if a ship is unfortunate enough to slip in, it is difficult to get out, and the crew will eventually run out of food and fresh water.
As the name of the sea goes, the seaweed in the area is predominantly sargassum. Belonging to the brown algae phylum and sargassum family, Sargassum is the largest algae and the only one that can grow autonomously in open water. This plant floats in the sea like a raft, ingesting nutrients directly from the seawater, and is densely distributed in some areas, like a sea grassland made of seaweed.
The sargasso sea is extremely transparent and is also related to the presence of seaweed. Because the sea is calm and the currents are weak throughout the year, the layers of seawater are basically not mixed, and sargassum continues to take in nutrients from the seawater, resulting in very few plankton in this area. Away from the mouth of the river, without the shade of plankton, the clarity of the sea will naturally increase a lot.
Because there are few plankton and very few fish and other animals that live on plankton, most of the sea is made up of seaweed.
In the past, the Sargasso Sea was indeed dangerous, and it was definitely one of the most dangerous seas in the world. Because before the invention of the steam engine, ships were driven by wind power, the power was not large, it was easy to be entangled in seaweed, and finally trapped. Therefore, at that time, no one dared to rush into the Sargasso Sea, which was also regarded as the "Magic Sea" at that time.
But for now, it's nothing at all. Because the current ships are powerful and have a very precise navigation system, they can avoid areas where seaweed is more dense, and it is not so easy to wrap around the propeller at all. The Sargasso Sea is not the most dangerous sea in the world at this time, and the ocean with a lot of ice floes is much more dangerous than this.
No one dared to set foot, leaving countless ships with no return, and these descriptions of the Sargasso Sea were somewhat exaggerated. The reason why the Sargasso Sea is so mysterious and dangerous is nothing more than being added to the oil and vinegar, after all, only such a sargasso sea is attractive.
And the Sargasso Sea is not very beautiful now, because the sea is too calm and has accumulated a lot of plastic waste, which has affected the local ecology.
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