a gyre is essentially a rotating circulation as far as what the oceans are doing. they rotate in a circular fashion. the reason that happens is the earth spins on an axis. if it didn't we wouldn't have that. the north pacific gyre is the one responsible for taking the tsunami debris from japan and taking it to north america. we will focus on the indian ocean gyre. that is counterclockwise because we are in the southern hemisphere and particularly interested in the northern flank of that here and why debris would move east to west. you can see the movement has that counterclockwise flow. if you are on the northern side you will get debris moving east to the west. that's a general circulation but there are nuances with the with circulations as well. we talk about these eddies that sometimes form because of different topography, different