Benares Shoals, or Benares Shoal, is a submerged coral reef, an isolated patch located at 5°15′S 071°40′E / 5.25°S 71.667°E / -5.25; 71.667Coordinates: 5°15′S 071°40′E / 5.25°S 71.667°E / -5.25; 71.667, just 6 km WNW of Île Pierre, the closest island of Peros Banhos atoll in the northern Chagos Archipelago. It measures about 3 km east-west, with a width of about 700 meters, and an area of 2 km². The least depth at the western end is 4.5 meters.
The Benares Shoals were first surveyed in 1837 by Commander Robert Moresby of the Indian Navy on the HMS Benares. Moresby's survey produced the first detailed map of this submerged reef, which was subsequently named after his ship.
Famous quotes containing the word shoals:
“It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)