Often, in different test cases or even crosswords, such a task is found here: “the part of the ocean that extends into the land is ...” The answer to this question is most often the “sea”. But is it really so? Before answering this question, we consider what parts the ocean consists of in general.
World Ocean
All the water covering most of the earth is called the oceans, the largest components of which are the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Their total area is just over 361 million square kilometers. There are practically no visible lines that would divide the oceans among themselves. Therefore, the division was made rather conditionally along the coastline, bottom topography, current systems, and features of water distribution.
Seas
The part of the ocean that extends into the land, although slightly (in most cases), is called the sea. Almost all of them are distinguished by islands, surface hills and so on. The only sea without coasts is the Sargasso Sea, it is a part of the ocean that is not limited by land on either side. The area of the sea is about 10% of the world's oceans. The largest in area is the Philippine.
From the open part of the ocean, the sea is distinguished by a unique hydrological regime and some other features that arise as a result of a kind of isolation, significant impact of land and slow currents.
The seas are divided by location into marginal, located on the border of land with the sea, inland, located inside the continents, and inter-island, located in a ring or some, sometimes conditional, enclosure from a group of islands.
Sea basins can be continental and oceanic, differing in the way the basins appear and, accordingly, in depth. So, mainland arose as a result of an increase in ocean water from melted glaciers. Oceanic formed in the places of faults of the earth's crust. Basically, these are the intercontinental seas, with rather symmetrical basins.
The coastline of the seas is most often uneven, with various bends and peninsulas. Along the coast there may be islands separated from each other by straits.
Bays
This is a part of the ocean that extends deep into the land. Slightly isolated from the oceans. It can be divided into types:
- Fjords. These are long and narrow bays that have significant depth and steep banks. They lie in the highlands. Most often formed in places of tectonic faults.
- estuaries. These are shallow bays formed at the places of estuaries flooded by the sea.
- The lagoons. Located along the coast, separated from it by braids.
Sometimes bays are divided by size. Size Champion - Bay of Bengal. Its depth is 4519 meters, and its area is 2191 thousand square kilometers.
There are times when reservoirs of similar size and size are called differently. For example, the Bay of Bengal has a similar area to the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea is close in area to the Persian Gulf. The point here is that these objects were named back in ancient times, when there were no clear definitions. It makes no sense to give such large geographical objects new names.
The straits
The part of the ocean that extends into the land is deep enough. It has a relatively small width, divides land areas or connects water bodies.
The straits are divided into narrow and wide, long and short, deep and long. There are also flowing straits and exchange ones. In flowing flow, always one way. Exchangers, on the other hand, are surprised at the different currents on opposite coasts or at different depth levels.
Thus, what is called the part of the ocean must be considered in each case, bearing in mind other signs, in addition to the fact that it extends into the land. After all, as we already understood, most of the parts of the ocean go into the land, although some of them are more, some less.