Pitt Bank
- Landsat 7
- Path 144, Row 065
- 15 February 2001
At around 1,100 km² in area, the Pitt Bank is the largest of the wholly submarine banks to be found within the Chagos Archipelago. It is located in the southwest of the archipelago, lying 91 km west from Diego Garcia and 21 km southwest from Egmont Reef.
The bank is the remains of a sunken atoll — the pronounced rim and central basin can still be seen in the above image — measuring 69 km in length (northwest to southeast), with a maximum width of 32 km across the central region and narrowing to less then 10 km in width in the southeast. Over the central areas, depths of up to 44 m are found, with the shallowest regions of the bank (7 m) being located on the rim.
image: millenium coral reefs landsat archive/usf millenium global coral reef mapping project/nasa seawifs/nasa jsc
