However, the meeting of the oceans here also fuels the nutrient cycle for marine life, making it one of the best fishing grounds in South Africa.

[3] As the current is diverged away from the coast, dynamic processes draws an onshore Ekman layer of cold water from below the warm shelf-edge flow.

In spring and summer, at a depth of 100 m (330 ft), a semi-permanent ridge of cold water is present on the eastern and central shelf.

As the Agulhas Current reaches the east coast of South Africa, large solitary meanders known as Natal pulses form at irregular intervals.

Other factors contribute, to various degrees, to the inter-ocean exchanges in the region, including filaments from the Agulhas Current and intrusions of water from Antarctica.

Its dynamic southern upwelling system is driven by the prevailing northward winds that produce an intense off-shore Ekman transport.

Maximum depth in the immediate vicinity is about 80 m, and the shallowest part of the reef is about 29 m. The oldest rock found along the coastline of the Agulhas Bank are eugeosynclinal[clarification needed] sediments of the up to 3 km (1.9 mi) thick Kaaimans Group deposited during continental rifting some 900 million years ago (Mya).

The Table Mountain Group is 4 km (2.5 mi) thick and an erosional unconformity marking its base is composed of both terrestrial and marine sediments.

[24] Basaltic lavas were extruded 183 Mya to form the Karoo large igneous province; a volcanism caused by the Bouvet hotspot which is linked to the Gondwana break-up.

The sedimentary fill of these basins developed as the northern edge of the Falkland Plateau separated from the South African southern margin during the early Cretaceous.

On a modern map, the Falkland Plateau can still be rotated and fitted into the Natal Valley in the Indian Ocean east of South Africa.

A series of slump scarps along the western edge of the shelf are 18–2 Mya, but covered by younger sediments brought there by the Benguela upwelling.

It has been estimated that the population was limited to perhaps 600 individuals during the MIS 6 glacial stage (195-125 kya), one of the longest cold periods in the Quaternary of Africa.

[35] The Cape Floral Region is a thin coastal strip and a botanic hotspot which developed at the confluence of the Benguela Upwelling and Agulhas Current.

According to what professor Curtis Marean calls the "Cape Floral Region – South Coast Model" for the origins of modern humans, the early hunter-gatherers survived on shellfish, as well as geophytes, fur seal, fish, seabirds, and wash-ups found on the exposed Agulhas Bank.

[36] The present South African southern coastal plain (SCP) is still separated from the rest of Africa by the Cape Fold Belt.

Anchovy spawn on the western Agulhas Bank in early summer while the sardines span over a broader season and area — eggs are transported by currents to the nursery area in the St Helena Bay on the South African west coast from where juvenile then migrate back to the Agulhas Bank to spawn.

Though the east coast has fewer commercial fisheries, the large human population along there has resulted in overexploitation of coastal fish and invertebrate stocks by recreational and subsistence fishers.

[41] Copepods comprise 90% of the zooplankton carbon on the Agulhas Bank, and are thus an important source of food for pelagic fish and juvenile squids.

The population of Calanus agulhensis, a large species that dominates the copepod community in terms of biomass, has a center of distribution on the central Agulhas Bank.

While it is likely that predation has played an important role in the copepod decline, global warming (sea surface temperature and chlorophyll A abundance) is believed to have contributed to a smaller population.

[3] Young sardine and anchovy congregate along the west coast between March and September before they migrate to their spawning grounds on the Agulhas Bank.

[45] The bank is the spawning area of deep reef fish species, including the threatened endemic red steenbras (Petrus rupestris).

Other species have been overexploited, including daggerhead seabream or dageraad (Chrysoblephus cristiceps), black musselcracker (Cymatoceps nasutus), and silver kob (Argyrosomus inodorus).

[47] The main food source for African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) is anchovy and sardine which they forage between Cape Columbine and the central Agulhas Bank.

[45] In 2005, when Korean and Philippine vessels started longline fishing along the edges of the Agulhas Bank, seabird bycatch became a huge problem.

[54] An analysis of killer whale mtDNA has shown that there was a peak inter-oceanic migration events during the Eemian interglacial period, 131-114 kya.

This peak coincides with a period of maximal Agulhas leakage which promoted a rapid and episodic interchange of killer whale lineages.

During this period killer whales and other marine top predators, such as the great white shark, colonised the North Atlantic and Mediterranean by following their prey — bluefin tuna and swordfish.

[55] A vagrant Commerson's dolphin — a species with two isolated populations, one along the southern coast of Argentina and the other around the Kerguelen Islands — was sighted on the Agulhas Bank in 2004.