Black Sea
Map of the Black Sea.
Area	413 000 km 2
Depth	2206 m (max.)
Type	Inland Sea
Location	Mediterranean Sea , Atlantic Ocean
Contact	43 N 34 E / 43, 34 43 N 34 E / 43, 34
Coastal state (s)	Bulgaria Georgia Abkhazia (internationally unrecognized) Romania Russia Turkey Ukraine
Subdivision (s)	Sea of Azov
Geolocation on the map: Europe
change

The Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea.

The Bulgarian resort of Golden Sands.

The Caspian Basin and its geology.

"sea" or Sarmatian Sarmatians.

The relative changes of level and salinity between the Aegean, Marmara and Black Sea by current models (2011).

View of Sochi from the Black Sea

5600 BC, according to the hypothesis of Ryan and Pitman.

The Black Sea is Wed located between Europe and Anatolia. Wide by about 1 150 km from west to east and 600 km from north to south, it covers an area of 413,000 km ^2.

It communicates to the north with the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait , and south-west with the Mediterranean by the Bosporus , the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles.

Name and etymology

In antiquity, the Greeks the first by dsignrent Skythikos Pontos (the "sea Scythian"). The Scythians , a people speaking Iranian , as the dsignrent Axana, that is to say " indigo. " The Greeks understood the term as first axeinos (a-private and xeinos "foreigner") in their language meaning "unfriendly to foreigners." Later, when its currents and winds them became familiar, it was designated as Pontos meaning "sea", "flow") Euxeinos and "foreigner" that is to say sea "friendly" or "welcoming", translated into French by with different variations. Thus, in this case:

• Kara, the "black" (or bilberry ) denotes the north ,
• Ak, "white" means the south ,
• Kizil, the "red" means the West ,
• Yeil, the "green" or Sari, the "yellow" means the is.

The Euxine is located north of Turkey , was then appointed Turkish : Karadeniz, "Black Sea". While the Mediterranean in the south was called the White Sea (Akdeniz), which should not be confused with the White Sea of Russia. Turkish scholars themselves are divided on the subject, as in ancient Turkic steppe, the North was nominated by Ak (white as snow) and the south by Kizil (Red like the heat). The other logic is to designate the north (dark) with black, the south (the clarity) by the white, western (sunset) by red.

Features

These figures do not include the Sea of Azov (37,600 km ^2).

The Black Sea has an area of between 417 000 and 423 000 km ² and a volume of between 537,000 and 555,000 km ^3.

Another source gives an area of 422,000 km ² (not counting in the Sea of Azov).

Geology

The Caspian basin has a maximum depth of 2252 meters. Its formation is subject to two assumptions:

• according to this would be a remnant of the Tethys Ocean (which separated until Paleocene of Eurasia from Gondwana ), isolated during the Alpine Orogeny Himalayo- and this assumption has the support of Most geologists based on the presence in the depths of oceanic crust age Cretaceous ;
• according to another minority, said Tethyan crust was apparently first raised and the Pontic basin result from a process of collapse later ( Miocene ), this assumption is based on the presence of system faults and ditches subduction on the perimeter of the basin.

Anyway, the bottom sediments of the basin are mainly Pleistocene and Holocene , freshwater and detrital facies at depth (indicative of significant riverine inputs during periods of thaw inter- glacial ) marine and above ( sediment less than 8000 years). Detrital sediments and freshwater is a period called "Sarmatic" started there are 5 million years, during which an inland sea covered the current freshwater Hungary, Romania, Black Sea, southern Russia, Caspian and Central Asia. The level of this lake has varied, and the Holocene (during the last glaciation, called Wrm ), it was 180 m lower than the current level of the seas, so that only the deep basins and pontine Caspian were water .

Recent Developments in Black Sea

In 1997, two American researchers, William Ryan and Walter Pitman , made the relationship between the hydrological history of the Black Sea, described in publications Bulgarian, Romanian and Soviet poorly known, and known myth of the Bible, the Ark Noah , similar facts are also described in the legend of Gilgamesh in the kingdom of Sumer , in ancient Greece in the deluge of Deucalion or the myth of Atlantis.

In the 1970s , analyzing the 14 C- shells of freshwater found in sediment cores from the Black Sea in current marine sediments, scientists have discovered the Bulgarian and Romanian Black Sea that was present there are nearly of 7000 years a lake of fresh water lake called Pontic which was 180 meters below the general level of the seas. At the time, instead of the Strait of Bosporus was an isthmus which isolated the lake from the sea of Marmara , which stopped a few miles south of the lake. Deglaciation post Wurmian melted the glaciers , causing sea level to the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmara. The valley was flooded by the Bosphorus the salty sea that would have spilled, according to Ryan and Pitman, in the Pontic lake as a cascade of salt water with 200 times the flow of Niagara Falls today. The lake level would be quickly mounted Pontic, its banks receding a mile a day.

The shores of the lake were already inhabited by farmers, because in Anatolia and Eastern European agriculture had begun early. Ryan and Pitman have thought then that these farmers, driven by rising waters, were dispersed in Anatolia and Mesopotamia , conveying the myth of the Deluge. They made books and documentaries .

The Black Sea and became a sea connected to the Mediterranean , a sea but very special: the death of biotope lake caused a separation of deep and surface water (see below) and salinity remained far below the world average: 12 to 16 grams of salt per liter instead of 35. Thus, a stream of salt water still flows deep through the Bosphorus (the "cascade" of sea water has never been stopped) while in surface waters less salty flow into the Black Sea Sea of Marmara. Submariners including Soviet and American familiar with the phenomenon and tried to enjoy it, but the narrow Bosporus (half a mile just to its narrowest point) and the heavy traffic of ships makes the exercise extremely dangerous (and there were accidents).

The hypothesis of catastrophic filling has not met the approval of all researchers: Recent geological studies tend to reject the idea of a catastrophic release of the Mediterranean into the Black Sea . Currently, there is no agreement on the issue among scientists and three very different reconstructions of the history of the Black Sea co-exist: the catastrophic hypothesis, a hypothesis and a gradualist hypothesis for which the sea level has often oscillated .

Ecology and chemistry of the Black Sea

The waters of the sea, beyond 200 meters deep, is anoxic , that is to say poor oxygen dissolved.
The deep focus enough hydrogen sulfide to the woods, leathers and fabrics are preserved wrecks of the bacterial action in favor of beachcombers.
These anoxic waters are separated from surface water, more oxygen by a chemocline , at which start to develop bacteria anaerobic and plankton. This phenomenon, also present in the Caspian Sea in the Baltic Sea and in Lake Tanganyika , is called euxinic .

From 2005 to 2009, the European Hermes project explores the marine ecosystems on 15,000 kilometers of deep continental margin to measure including the forms of methane Black Sea and Baltic. We should better understand the anoxic microbial ecosystems, and their energy balance and in terms of sources / sinks of carbon and greenhouse gases.
There was thus able to explore the meiobenthos (medium size, that is to say 1 mm to 63 microns or 0.063 mm) and species of an active area of natural gas production methane and H ₂ S toxicity, its variations (from -182 to -252 m in the canyon submarine Dnieper north-western Black Sea). The meiobenthos consisted mainly of Nematoda and Foraminifera ( Ciliata particular), cohabiting with polychaetes , but also of bivalves , gastropods , amphipods , and Acarina. It was also found in sediments of juvenile stages of copepods and cladocerans probably of plankton. The abundance of meiobenthos ranged from 2 397 52 593 individuals per square meter (more numerous in the superficial layer of sediment to nematodes and foraminifera of a permanent H ₂ S zone at depths of 220 to 250 m). This high concentration of meiobenthos was found in an area of intense methane emissions associated with a microbial mat ( biofilm ) methanotrophs or methane-oxidizing. The study suggests that methane and its microbial oxidation products account for the survival of many benthic species adapted to this extreme environment and a bioproductivity higher in areas with high sulfur. An inverse correlation was found between meiofauna density and rates of methane from layers of sediment. The researchers speculate that the rate of nematode and foraminiferal zones enriched in methane is a compromise between the ecological requirements and food requirements of these organisms and their adaptations to the environment made toxic by the H ₂ S .

The Black Sea is a global hotspot of biodiversity with eg 42 species of amphipod benthic were found in the region , where they still discovering new species but it is also highly threatened by pollution and " Biological Invasions " .

Pollution

In June 2008 the Council of Europe has warned residents against the country an ecological disaster and called for general mobilization. The Danube flows into effect each year in the Black Sea 280 tons of cadmium , 60 tons of mercury , 4,500 tons of lead , 6,000 tonnes of zinc , 1,000 tons of chromium and 50 000 tonnes of hydrocarbons.

Coastal Cities

Russia

• Sochi
• Novorossiysk
• Anapa
• Tuapse

Bulgaria

• Varna
• Bourgas

Romania

• Constana
• Mangalia

Turkey

• Istanbul
• Samsun
• Sinop
• nebolu
• Rize
• Ordu
• Trabzon
• Zonguldak
• Giresun
• Sile

Ukraine

• Odessa
• Yalta
• Sevastopol
• Kerch
• Theodosia
• Eupatoria

Georgia

• Batumi
• Poti
• Sukhumi

Sources

References

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