"Strait" and "bay" are geographical terms that are widely heard. These concepts, along with many others, are studied in a school geography course. What is a bay and a strait? The answer will be given in our article.
What is a strait: definition
A strait is a part of a body of water, a relatively narrow strip of water that connects adjacent water basins or parts of water basins delimited by land. This is a kind of "water bridges" between two different water bodies. Their most important characteristics include parameters such as depth, width (maximum and minimum), and length.
The path through the straits is usually the shortest in length between two adjacent land areas. Therefore, bridges are often erected through them, which greatly facilitates transport links.
Classification
What is a strait, was briefly described in the previous section, now let's talk about what they are.
The following types of straits are distinguished:
- By location relative to parts of the land (separating two islands, a continent and an island, parts of one or two different continents). For example, the Bering Strait in Chukotka separates Asia from North America, and the Bonifacio Strait separates the two islands, Corsica and Sardinia, belonging to France and Italy, respectively.
- By location relative to the ocean basins (lying in the basin of one or connecting the basins of two oceans). So, the Bering Strait mentioned above belongs to the second type, connecting the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.
- By status (international legal). Various options are possible here. So, firstly, there are straits in which international shipping is officially permitted, and relevant agreements (conventions) have been adopted on this subject. The most famous example is the Bosphorus Strait, connecting the Black Sea with the Marmara. Secondly, there are straits with international shipping that connect the territorial sea of a state and the open sea or the exclusive economic zone (the so-called right of peaceful passage). Thirdly, they distinguish the straits that connect the parts of the open sea or the exclusive economic zone (the right of transit passage) to each other. An example is the Strait of Singapore.
In addition to these parameters, the current velocity in the straits and its direction are usually taken into account.
Champion Straits
The champion in length is the Strait of Mozambique, located between the island of Madagascar and Africa: approximately 1,760 kilometers. The flow here is stable, from north to south, the speed is approximately 1, - 1.5 knots (1.852 - 2.778 kilometers per hour). The strait has a maximum depth of 3, 292 kilometers. Its smallest width is 42 meters.
The champion in width is the Drake Strait between South America and Antarctica. Its maximum width is 950 kilometers (minimum - 820 kilometers). It is also the deepest on Earth - 5.840 kilometers. This strait is extremely difficult to navigate, and hundreds of ships found their doom here. Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, many sailors attempted to go around Cape Horn, crowning Tierra del Fuego from the south, and these attempts often ended tragically. A powerful cold current of the Western Winds passes through the Drake Channel. Powerful storms are often raging here, the wind speed at which can reach 126 kilometers per hour. In addition, it often contains icebergs carried away by the current from west to east. All these factors as a whole make navigation in the Drake Channel extremely unsafe. It is possible only for ships of solid displacement and in relatively calm weather conditions.
Bays and straits
What is a bay? This issue should also be clarified in order to avoid possible confusion, because the names of the bay and the strait are so similar. A bay is the part of the ocean or sea that extends into the land. If the strait is a kind of “bridge” between two water basins, then the bay is this water basin itself. For example, the so-called Tenth Degree Channel in the Indian Ocean connects the Andaman Sea with the Bay of Bengal.
Finally
The article answered the question of what the strait is, their classification, the differences of the strait from the bay are considered. Information was also given about the longest and widest and deepest straits.