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Concept
Sargasso Sea
Summary
The Sargasso Sea (sɑrˈgæsoʊ) is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre. Unlike all other regions called seas, it has no land boundaries. It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Ocean by its characteristic brown Sargassum seaweed and often calm blue water.
The sea is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream, on the north by the North Atlantic Current, on the east by the Canary Current, and on the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current, the four together forming a clockwise-circulating system of ocean currents termed the North Atlantic Gyre. It lies between 20° and 35° north and 40° and 70° west and is approximately wide by long. Bermuda is near the western fringes of the sea.
While all of the above currents deposit marine plants and refuse into the sea, ocean water in the Sargasso Sea is distinctive for its deep blue color and exceptional clarity, with underwater visibility of up to . It is also a body of water that has captured the public imagination, and so is seen in a wide variety of literary and artistic works and in popular culture.
The first known written account of the Sargasso Sea dates to Christopher Columbus in 1492, who wrote about seaweed that he feared would trap his ship and potentially hide shallow waters that could run them aground, as well as a lack of wind that he feared would trap them.
The sea may have been known to earlier mariners, as a poem by the late fourth century author Avienius describes a portion of the Atlantic as being covered with seaweed and windless, citing a now-lost account by the fifth century BCE Carthaginian Himilco the Navigator. Columbus himself was aware of this account and thought Himilco had reached the Sargasso Sea, as did several other explorers. However, modern scholars consider this unlikely. According to the Muslim cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, the Mugharrarūn (المغررون, "the adventurers") sent by the Almoravid sultan Ali ibn Yusuf (1084–1143), led by his admiral Ahmad ibn Umar, reached a part of the ocean covered by seaweed, identified by some as the Sargasso Sea.
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