There are 63 seas on the globe. The Caspian and Aral ones cannot be added to them (these are huge, but still lakes are the “descendants” of the ancient Tethys Ocean), as well as the Galilee and the Dead (the addition of the “sea” is historical here). What is the sea like? The classification of scientists A. M. Muromtsev, Yu. M. Shokalsky, A. V. Everling, Kryummel, N. N. Zubov answered this question. In the article, we give the most widespread categories of seas.
What the sea happens: oceans classification
The most famous classification is that which distributes the seas according to their belonging to the basin of one or another ocean. Based on it, we can distinguish 5 varieties of these reservoirs:
- Pacific - 25 seas, among them the Bering, Yellow, Japanese, Philippine, Tasman, Fiji, Okhotsk, East China and others.
- Atlantic - 16 seas, including the Baltic, Azov, Caribbean, Northern, Mediterranean, Aegean, Black, etc.
- Indian Ocean - 11 seas, including the Arabian, Red, Timor and others.
- Arctic ice - 11 seas, including the Barents, East Siberian, Pechora, Laptev, Kara, Chukchi and others.
- South Oceans - the seas of Antarctica: Amundsen, Bellingshausen, the Commonwealth, Cosmonauts, etc.
What are the seas: names by isolation from the ocean
There are four large groups in this category:
- Inter-island - located in a dense ring of islands that interfere with active water exchange with the ocean: Sulawesi, Yavan, etc.
- Intercontinental (Mediterranean) - surrounded by land so that only a few straits communicate with the ocean: Red, Mediterranean, Caribbean, etc.
- Outskirts - freely communicating with the vastness of the ocean, currents in them are also formed due to its winds. The ocean also affects the nature of their bottom sediments, microclimate, flora and fauna: Japanese, South China, Bering, Okhotsk, etc.
- Internal - completely closed from land contact with the ocean. Inside, they are divided into intra-continental (Russian Black, Yellow) and inter-continental (Red, Mediterranean), as well as isolated - not in contact with other similar reservoirs (Aral or Dead), into semi-closed (for example, Azov, Baltic).
Salinity distribution of the seas
These categories answer the question "What happens in the sea?". There are two answers:
- Lightly salted seas - the percentage of salt is lower than in the waters of the ocean. For example, the Black Sea belongs here.
- Highly salted seas - the percentage of salinity of their waters is higher than the ocean. As a good example - the Red Sea.
There are no seas with fresh water, as can be seen from the classification.
