Erebus (12,448 feet), located on Ross Island on the other side of Antarctica from the Antarctic Peninsula, is the world’s southernmost active volcano. An underwater volcano in the Antarctic Peninsula was discovered in 2004. There may be more volcanic activity than what has been recorded. The volcano continues to show activity, and sightings of lava flow continue to be reported. There was an additional large eruption in 1970. The peninsula is the location of a volcano on Deception Island that erupted in the late 1960s and destroyed research stations in the area. The Antarctic Peninsula is actually an extension of the Andes Mountains of South America and is home to active volcanoes. The krill, which thrive on phytoplankton, are an important link in the food chain for marine organism such as fish, penguins, seals, albatrosses, and whales in the Southern Ocean. The zone of Subtropical Convergence can be visually observed by the grayish, cold southern waters meeting up with the bluish-green, warm northern waters. The cold, dense water from the south sinks below the warm waters from the north to create a zone of upwelling and mixing that is conducive to high levels of productivity for organisms such as phytoplankton and krill. There is a transition called the Subtropical Convergence in which the cold, dense waters of the Southern Ocean meet up with the warmer waters of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The Southern Ocean’s northern boundary has more to do with the marine conditions of the realm. Most geographers accept the northern boundary of the Southern Ocean to be located south of 60° latitude even though the actual limit has not yet been firmly agreed upon. The Southern Ocean’s northern boundary does not border a land mass but meets up with the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. The cold waters off the coast of Antarctica move from west to east in a clockwise rotation around the continent in a movement called the West Wind Drift, or the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The Southern Ocean, which surrounds the continent of Antarctica, is often misunderstood or not included on many maps of the Southern Hemisphere.
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