Michelle Hendricks, age 9, of Louisville, Ky., for her question:
HOW DEEP IS THE GULF OF MEXICO?
North America's longest river is the 2,348 mile long Mississippi River. As this great waterway approaches the Gulf of Mexico, it deposits large amounts of silt to form a delta. The Mississippi delta covers more than 15,000 square miles. The river empties over 640,000 cubic feet of water per second into the gulf, which totals about 133 cubic miles of water per year.
The Gulf of Mexico is a great, curved part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is almost entirely surrounded by Mexico and the United States.
Nearly 700,000 square miles of water form the huge ocean basin we call the Gulf of Mexico. It is 800 miles long and 1,100 miles wide.
The water of the Gulf of Mexico is deepest near the coast of Mexico where it reaches a depth of 12,700 feet. The depth of the gulf in other places is about 10,000 feet.
The Yucatan Channel and the Straits of Florida are not nearly as deep as the rest of the gulf. The water is also rather shallow in many places with gently sloping beds, formed by the silt poured in by rivers.
The Yucatan Channel connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Caribbean Sea, and the Straits of Florida join it to the Atlantic Ocean. Warm gulf waters flowing through the Straits of Florida form an important Atlantic current called the Gulf Stream.
The coastline of the Gulf of Mexico is about 3,000 miles long. It has hundreds of lagoons and many salt marshes bordered by sand bars.
only a few good harbors can be found along the Gulf of Mexico. The best ones are the ports of Veracruz, Mexico: Galveston, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola and Tampa in Florida; and Havanna, Cuba.
Many small islands, which are called keys, lie in the Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Florida and Yucatan.
The second largest ocean current in the world is the Gulf Stream, which has its source in the warm waters of the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico. These waters pass through the Straits of Florida to become the Gulf Stream. The water continues northeastward across the Atlantic toward Europe.
The Gulf Stream flows as fast as 138 miles a day. Its rate of flow, measured in volume per second, is about 1,000 times greater than that of the Mississippi River.
The warm winds and warm water associated with the Gulf Stream greatly influence the climate of the countries they touch.