Sargasso Sea

For other uses, see Sargasso Sea (disambiguation).
The Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic is bounded by the Gulf Stream on the west, the North Atlantic Current on the north, the Canary Current on the east, and the North Equatorial Current on the south.

The Sargasso Sea is a region in the gyre in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is the only sea on Earth which has no coastline.[1] It is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. It is 1,107 km wide and 3,200 km long (700 statute miles wide and 2,000 statute miles long). It stretches from roughly 70 degrees west to 40 degrees west, and from 20 degrees north to 35 degrees north. Bermuda is near the western fringes of the sea. This system of ocean currents forms the North Atlantic Gyre.

All the currents deposit the marine plants and refuse they carry into this sea, yet the ocean water in the Sargasso Sea is distinctive for its deep blue color and exceptional clarity, with underwater visibility of up to 61 m (200 ft).[2]

History

The naming of the Sargasso Sea after the Sargassum seaweed traces back to the early 15th-century Portuguese explorations of the Azores Islands and of the large "volta do mar" (the North Atlantic gyre), around and west of the archipelago, where the seaweed was often present.[3] However, the sea may have been known to earlier mariners, as a poem by the late 4th-century author Rufus Festus Avienus describes a portion of the Atlantic as being covered with seaweed, citing a now-lost account by the 5th-century BC Carthaginian Himilco the Navigator.

Ecology

Lines of sargassum in the Sargasso Sea

The Sargasso Sea is home to seaweed of the genus Sargassum, which floats en masse on the surface there. The sargassum is not a threat to shipping, and historic incidents of sailing ships being trapped there are due to the often calm winds of the horse latitudes.[4]

Map showing distribution and size of eel larvae, with increasing density centering on the Sargasso Sea.

The Sargasso Sea also plays a major role in the migration of both the European eel and the American eel. The larvae of both species hatch there and go to Europe or the East Coast of North America. Later in life, they try to return to the Sargasso Sea to lay eggs. It is also believed that after hatching, young Loggerhead sea turtles use currents, such as the Gulf Stream to travel to the Sargasso Sea, where they use the Sargassum as cover from predators until they are mature.[5][6]

The Sargasso Sea was the subject of a recent metagenomics effort called the Global Ocean Sampling (GOS) survey by J. Craig Venter and others, to evaluate the diversity of microbial life there. The results have indicated that, contrary to previous theories, the area has a wide variety of prokaryotic life.[7]

Owing to surface currents, the Sargasso accumulates a high concentration of non-biodegradable plastic waste.[8] The huge North Atlantic Garbage Patch in the area is similar to another ocean phenomenon, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The accumulation of both floating plants and floating garbage in this and other gyres of the world depends on Coriolis and the fact that they are clockwise rotating systems in the Northern Hemisphere and counter clockwise rotating systems in the Southern Hemisphere. Coriolis veers moving objects in both cases into the centre of the gyre.

Several nations and nongovernmental organizations have joined together to protect the Sargasso Sea.[9] These organizations include the Sargasso Sea Commission [10] established on 11 March 2014 by the governments of the Azores (Portugal), Bermuda, Monaco, United Kingdom and the United States.

Depictions in popular culture

The Sargasso Sea is often portrayed in literature and the media as an area of mystery.[11] In the 1910 publication Psmith in the City by P. G. Wodehouse, it has been used in a negative sense. To Mike, the bedroom he had to hire as a bedsit "seemed the most dismal spot he had ever struck. A sort of Sargasso Sea among bedrooms."

Stories set within the Sea

In 1846 Edward Forbes hypothesized a post-Miocene land mass extending westward from Europe into the Atlantic. "If this land existed it did not extend to America (for the fossils of the Miocene of America are representative & not identical): where then was the edge or coastline of it, Atlantic-wards? Look at the form & constancy of the great fucus-bank & consider that it is a Sargassum bank".[12]

The Sargasso Sea features in classic fantasy stories by William Hope Hodgson, such as his novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907), Victor Appleton's Don Sturdy novel Don Sturdy in the Port of Lost Ships: Or, Adrift in the Sargasso Sea, and several related short stories. Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea describes the Sargasso Sea and gives an account of its formation.[13]

Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea refers to, but is not set in the sea, being concerned with colonial-era Jamaica.

Ezra Pound's poem "Portrait d'une Femme" begins, "Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea".

Other stories include:

In several fictional depictions, the Sargasso Sea is detailed as a mythical floating ship graveyard in which ships get caught in the seaweeds and never get free again, turning the vessels into ghost ships. Versions of such are shown in:

In music

References

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Sargasso Sea.
  1. ↑ Administration, US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric. "What is the Sargasso Sea?". oceanservice.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  2. ↑ "Sargasso Sea". World Book 15. Field Enterprises. 1958.
  3. ↑ "The Sargasso Sea". BBC - Homepage. BBC. Retrieved 6 June 2011.
  4. ↑ "Sargasso". Straight Dope.
  5. ↑ "Turtles return home after UK stay". BBC News. 2008-06-30. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  6. ↑ "Satellites track turtle 'lost years'". BBC News. 2014-03-05. Retrieved 2014-03-05.
  7. ↑ "Environmental genome shotgun sequencing of the Sargasso Sea.".
  8. ↑ "The trash vortex". Greenpeace. Retrieved 2008-04-20.
  9. ↑ Shaw, David (2014-05-27). "Protecting the Sargasso Sea". Science & Diplomacy 3 (2).
  10. ↑ http://www.sargassoalliance.org
  11. ↑ Ruth Heller (2000). A Sea Within a Sea: Secrets of the Sargasso. Price Stern Sloan. ISBN 978-0-448-42417-0.
  12. ↑ Forbes' letter to Darwin
  13. ↑ Jules Verne (trans. by William Butcher) (1870). 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (2001 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-282839-8.
  14. ↑ Fred Andrews. "Kemper Conseil Publishing". Kemperconseil.nl. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
  15. ↑ Anton, Uwe: Schiff der Rätsel. Ullstein Abenteuer Spiele. ISBN 3-548-21090-2.
  16. ↑
  17. ↑ "Taeko Ohnuki – Sunshower (Vinyl, LP, Album) on Discodogs".
  18. ↑ "Sargasso Sea (album:A Blind Sign)".
  19. ↑ Michael Lee Firkins (album)
  20. ↑ "ST3 on Discodogs". Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  21. ↑ "Jammy Awards Announce 7th Jammy Awards Nominations", Guitar Player
  22. ↑ Hect, Jared (2007) "Escaping Sargasso Sea" (review), Relix, 6 December 2007
  23. ↑ In Your Dreams (album)
  24. ↑ https://lemondemon.bandcamp.com/track/touch-tone-telephone

External links

Look up Sargasso Sea in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Coordinates: 28°N 66°W / 28°N 66°W / 28; -66

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.