The Chagos Archipelago is a group of seven
atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical
islands roughly in the centre of the
Indian Ocean. The Chagos lies about 500 km (300 miles) due south of the
Maldives, its nearest neighbour, 1600 km (1000 miles) southwest of
India, half way between
Tanzania and
Java. The Chagos group is a combination of different coralline structures topping a submarine ridge running southwards across the centre of the Indian Ocean, formed by volcanoes above the
Réunion hotspot. Unlike in the Maldives there is not a clearly discernible pattern of arrayed atolls, which makes the whole archipelago look somewhat chaotic. Most of the coralline structures of the Chagos are submerged reefs.
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