雅思听力材料：红海(BBC纪录片)

　　Red Sea

　　The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is theSinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez . The Red Sea is aGlobal 200 ecoregion. The sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley.

　　The Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km . It is about 2250 km long and, at its widest point, 355 km wide. It has a maximum depth of 2211 m in the central median trench, and an average depth of 490 m . However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals. The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the worlds northernmost tropical sea.