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The Dordrecht Deep is located in the Diamantina Trench southwest of Perth, Western Australia. The Diamantina Trench is in the eastern part of the larger Diamantina fracture zone , which stretches 1,900 kilometres (1,200 mi) [ 1 ] from the Ninety East Ridge to the Naturaliste Plateau , off the lower part of Southwest Australia .
The Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean south of Africa at Cape Agulhas. The Indian Ocean, the third largest, extends northward from the Southern Ocean to India, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia in Asia, and between Africa in the west and Australia in the east. The Indian Ocean joins the Pacific Ocean to the east, near Australia.
The boundaries of the legal limits of the Australian seabed and continental shelf control define one aspect of 'Australian Waters' - however this project also extends to the Indonesian Archipelago, Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean and Pacific Ocean - each of these regions/oceans and their conditions have governed Australian maritime history.
The IHO in its Limits of Oceans and Seas (both the currently in-force 1953 edition [3] and the 2002 never-approved draft) includes the bight with the Indian Ocean, while Bass Strait and the Tasman Sea are included by IHO with the South Pacific Ocean in the 2002 draft. In the 1953 edition, IHO includes Bass Strait as part of the Indian Ocean.
Australia is the lowest, flattest, and oldest continental landmass on Earth [8] and it has had a relatively stable geological history. Geological forces such as the tectonic uplift of mountain ranges and clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early prehistory, when it was still a part of Gondwana .
The Indian Ocean, together with the Mediterranean, has connected people since ancient times, whereas the Atlantic and Pacific have had the roles of barriers or mare incognitum. The written history of the Indian Ocean, however, has been Eurocentric and largely dependent on the availability of written sources from the European colonial era.
The territory is located in the Indian Ocean situated on the edge of the continental shelf, about 320 km (199 mi) off the northwest coast of Australia and 144 km (89 mi) south of the Indonesian island of Rote. [4] Ashmore Reef is called Pulau Pasir by Indonesians and Nusa Solokaek in the Rotenese language. Both names have the meaning "sand island".
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. [N 5] It has a total area of 7,688,287 km 2 (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania.