The Sicilian-Ionian basin has a mean depth of 885 fathoms, and the Levant basin, 793 fathoms. Deep water is found close up to the coast of Sicily, Greece, Crete and the edge of the African plateau.
In many cases a still heavier type is used for the first mile or two from shore, and several intermediate types are often introduced, tapering gradually to the thin deep-water type.
The mean depth over this ridge is about 250 fathoms, and the maximum depth nowhere reaches 500 fathoms. The main basin of the Atlantic is thus cut off from the Arctic basin, with which the area north of the ridge has complete deep-water communication.
On both sides of the central ridge deep troughs extend southwards from the Telegraph plateau to the Southern Ocean, the deep water coming close to the land all the way down on both sides.
The group has submarine connexion, under relatively shallow sea, with the Timorlaut group to the south-west and the chain of islands extending north-west towards Ceram; deep water separates it on the east from the Aru Islands and on the west from the inner islands of the Banda Sea.