Geology of the British Indian Ocean Territory carbonates, which are present in the Seychelles for reasons that are not clear—hypothesized to include local storm erosion. The offshore waters around the archipelago contain deep-sea ferromanganese nodules, with globular, dendritic and laminated microstructures formed from iron-manganese oxide. Due to the US military presence on the island the US Geological Survey has conducted water resource analysis since 1984. Geology of the British Indian Ocean Territory The geology of the British Indian Ocean Territory comprises the Chagos Archipelago—the above water portion of the Chagos Bank. Formed from hotspot volcanism, the Chagos Bank was separated from the Nazareth Bank 36 million years
Indian Ocean Polynesians reached most of the far flung islands and atolls and populated them, almost all the islands, archipelagos and atolls of the Indian Ocean were uninhabited until colonial times. Although there were numerous ancient civilizations in the coastal states of Asia and parts of Africa, the Maldives were the only island group in the Central Indian Ocean region where an ancient civilization flourished. Maldivian ships used the Indian Monsoon Current to travel to the nearby coasts. From 1405 to 1433 admiral Zheng He said to have led large fleets of the Ming Dynasty on several treasure voyages through the Indian