Everything about Azov Sea totally explained
The
Sea of Azov (-
Azovskoye more; -
Azovs'ke more, ) is the world's shallowest sea, linked by the
Strait of Kerch to the
Black Sea to the south. It is bounded on the north by
Ukraine, on the east by
Russia and on the west by the
Crimean
peninsula.
The current name is popularly said to come from a certain
Polovtsian prince named
Azum or
Asuf, who was killed defending a town in this region in 1067. Most scholars derive the name from the city of
Azov, or
Azak, meaning "low" in Turkish, a reference to its location.
Geology and bathymetry
The sea is long and wide and has an area of . The main rivers flowing into it are the
Don and
Kuban; they ensure that the waters of the sea have comparatively low salinity and are almost fresh in places, and also bring in huge volumes of silt. To the west also lie the long
Arabat Spit and the highly saline marshy inlets of the
Sivash.
The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world with an average depth of and maximum depth of ; where silt has built up, such as the
Gulf of Taganrog, the average depth is less than . The prevailing current in the sea is a
counter-clockwise swirl. Salinity varies from 1 to 15 parts per thousand (compared to 30 to 40 for the oceans) across the sea and with season.
The shallowness and low salinity of the sea make it vulnerable to freezing during winter. Formation of sea ice can occur temporarily at any time from late December to mid-March. Under the present climate, the sea no longer freezes over, although during the 18th and 19th centuries and as far as the late 1970s, it was normally frozen over every year by early February.
Hydrology and hydrochemistry
Fauna
Historically, the sea has had a rich variety of marine life, with over 80 fish and 300 invertebrate species identified. But diversity and numbers have been reduced by over-fishing and increasing levels of
pollution.
History
The
Black Sea deluge theory dates the genesis of the Sea of Azov to
5600 BC, and there are traces of
Neolithic settlement in the area now covered by it. In antiquity, it was known as the Maeotian Lake or Maeotian Sea (
Greek ἡ Μαιῶτις λίμνη and
Latin Palus Maeotis), after the tribe of
Maeotae which inhabited the
Maeotian marshes to the east from the sea.
Deluge theory
In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman from
Columbia University published a theory that a massive flood through the
Bosporus occurred in ancient times. They claim that the Black and
Caspian Seas were vast freshwater lakes, but then about
5600 BC, the
Mediterranean spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosporus, creating the current communication between the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Subsequent work has been done both to support and to discredit this theory, and archaeologists still debate it. This has led some to associate this catastrophe with prehistoric
flood myths.
Crimean War 1854-56
A naval campaign between the Allied navies of
Britain and
France against Russia took place in the Sea of Azov between May and November 1855. The British awarded a bar,
'Azoff', to the
British Crimean War medal to commemorate the campaign.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Azov Sea'.
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