Lombok Strait

Lombok Strait

The Lombok Strait, is a strait connecting the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean, and is located between the islands of Bali and Lombok in Indonesia. The Gili Islands are on the Lombok side.
The Lombok Strait is notable as one of the main passages for the Indonesian Throughflow that exchanges water between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
It is also part of the biogeographical boundary between the fauna of Indomalaya ecozone and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia. The boundary is known as the Wallace Line, for Alfred Russel Wallace, who 1st remarked upon the striking difference between animals of Indo-Malaysia from those of Australasia and how abrupt the boundary was between the two biomes.
Biologists believe it was the depth of the Lombok Strait itself that kept the animals on either side isolated from one another. When sea levels dropped during the Pleistocene ice age, the islands of Bali, Java and Sumatra were all connected to one another and to the mainland of Asia. They shared the Asian fauna. The Lombok Strait's deep water kept Lombok and the Lesser Sunda archipelago isolated from the Asian mainland. These islands were, instead, colonized by Australasian fauna.

Related Sites for Lombok Strait

• Lombok | Bali Blog - Bali Travel Guide to Hotels, Tourism and ... read Lombok Strait
• Getting To Lombok By Fast Catamaran Boat | Bali & Lombok Access ... read Lombok Strait