Marginal sea
The term marginal sea commonly has two differing meanings.
As an oceanographic term, marginal sea indicates a partially enclosed sea adjacent to or widely open to the open ocean at the surface, but bounded by submarine ridges on the sea floor.[1][clarification needed]
As a geopolitical term, marginal sea is equivalent to territorial waters.[2] Defining what naval territory falls under a state's jurisdiction as "marginal sea" is important in determining what maritime resources that state can exploit.[3]
Marginal seas of the world [edit]
Sources differ over which seas are considered marginal seas as well as which ocean a given sea is considered a marginal part of. There is no single ultimate authority on the matter.
Marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean:
- Barents Sea
- Beaufort Sea
- Chukchi Sea (separated by Wrangel Island)
- Kara Sea[4]
- Laptev Sea (separated by the Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands)[5]
Marginal seas of the Atlantic Ocean:
- Argentine Sea
- Baltic Sea[3]
- Caribbean Sea[3]
- English Channel
- Gulf of Mexico
- Hudson Bay[1]
- Irish Sea (separated by Ireland)[3]
- Mediterranean Sea[3]
- North Sea (by Great Britain)[3]
- Norwegian Sea (by Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Shetland); and Greenland Sea[3]
- Scotia Sea (by the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands)
- Sometimes the Arctic Ocean itself is considered a marginal sea of the Atlantic.[3][6]
Marginal seas of the Indian Ocean:
- Andaman Sea (separated by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands).[7]
- Arabian Sea
- Bay of Bengal
- Java Sea (separated by the Greater Sunda Islands)
- Persian Gulf[3]
- Red Sea[3]
- Sea of Zanj (an historic entity off the southeast African coast and including the Mascarene islands)
Marginal seas of the Mediterranean Sea:
- Adriatic Sea
- Aegean Sea
- Alboran Sea
- Balearic Sea
- Black Sea[3]
- Sea of Crete
- Ionian Sea
- Ligurian Sea
- Myrtoan Sea
- Thracian Sea
- Tyrrhenian Sea
Marginal sea of the Black Sea:
Marginal seas of the Pacific Ocean:
- Bering Sea (separated by the Aleutian Islands)
- Celebes Sea[3]
- Coral Sea (by the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu).[3]
- East China Sea (by the Ryukyu Islands)
- Philippine Sea (by the Ogasawara Islands, the Mariana Islands, and Palau)
- Sea of Chiloé (by Chiloé Island, Chile)
- Sea of Japan (by the Japanese Archipelago)[3]
- Sea of Okhotsk (by the Kurile Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula)
- South China Sea (by the Philippines)[3]
- Sulu Sea[3]
- Tasman Sea (between Australia and New Zealand)
- Yellow Sea (by the Korean Peninsula)[1]
Marginal seas of the Southern Ocean:
The Caribbean Sea is sometimes defined as a marginal sea,[3] sometimes as a mediterranean sea.[1]
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Look up marginal sea in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
References [edit]
- ^ a b c d American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (1994). Glossary of the mapping sciences. ASCE Publications. p. 469. ISBN 978-0-7844-0050-0. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
- ^ George M. Cole (21 March 1997). Water boundaries. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 137–139. ISBN 978-0-471-17929-0. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q James C. F. Wang (1992). Handbook on ocean politics & law. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 14–. ISBN 978-0-313-26434-4. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
- ^ Kara Sea, Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Laptev Sea, Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Longhurt, Alan R. (2007). Ecological Geography of the Sea. Academic Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-12-455521-1. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
- ^ Andaman Sea, Encyclopædia Britannica
