The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and the Americas. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. The Bering Sea is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator in Russian service, who, in 1728, was the first European to systematically explore it, sailing from the Pacific Ocean northward to the Arctic Ocean.
The beluga whale is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus Delphinapterus. It is also known as the white whale, as it is the only cetacean to regularly occur with this colour; the sea canary, due to its high-pitched calls; and the melonhead, though that more commonly refers to the melon-headed whale, which is an oceanic dolphin.
The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Alaska, and west of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a hydrographer. The Mackenzie River, the longest in Canada, empties into the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea west of Tuktoyaktuk, which is one of the few permanent settlements on the sea's shores.
The Alaska North Slope is the region of the U.S. state of Alaska located on the northern slope of the Brooks Range along the coast of two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea being on the western side of Point Barrow, and the Beaufort Sea on the eastern. With the exception of the highway connecting Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, the region is disconnected from the rest of the Alaskan road system and relies mostly on waterways and small airports for transportation due to the Brooks Range secluding the region from the rest of the state.
The Chukchi Sea, sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea. The Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The principal port on the Chukchi Sea is Uelen in Russia. The International Date Line crosses the Chukchi Sea from northwest to southeast. It is displaced eastwards to avoid Wrangel Island as well as the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug on the Russian mainland.
Exploration for petroleum in the Arctic is expensive and challenging both technically and logistically. In the offshore, sea ice can be a major factor. There have been many discoveries of oil and gas in the several Arctic basins that have seen extensive exploration over past decades but distance from existing infrastructure has often deterred development. Development and production operations in the Arctic offshore as a result of exploration have been limited, with the exception of the Barents and Norwegian seas. In Alaska, exploration subsequent to the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield has focussed on the onshore and shallow coastal waters.
The Hope Basin is a geological feature of the Chukchi Sea Shelf. It lies off the Chukchi Sea coast of Alaska. Its area extends from the outer continental shelf of the Seward Peninsula for about 700 km (430 mi) westwards off the coast of Chukotka towards Wrangel Island.
The salt tectonics off the Louisiana gulf coast can be explained through two possible methods. The first method attributes spreading of the salt because of sedimentary loading while the second method points to slope instability as the primary cause of gliding of the salt. The first method results in the formation of growth faults in the overlying sediment. Growth faults are normal faults that occur simultaneously with sedimentation, causing them to have thicker sediment layers on the downthrown sides of the faults. In the second method both the salt and the sediment are moving, making it more likely to migrate.
The Chukchi Plateau or Chukchi Cap is a large subsea formation extending north from the Alaskan margin into the Arctic Ocean. The ridge is normally covered by ice year-round, and reaches an approximate bathymetric prominence of 3,400 m with its highest point at 246 m below sea level. As a subsea ridge extending from the continental shelf of the United States north of Alaska, the Chukchi Plateau is an important feature in maritime law of the Arctic Ocean and has been the subject of significant geographic research. The ridge has been extensively mapped by the USCGC Healy, and by the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent in 2011 and RV Marcus Langseth, a National Science Foundation vessel operated by the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
The Columbus Basin is a foreland basin located off the south eastern coast of Trinidad within the East Venezuela Basin (EVB). Due to the intensive deformation occurring along the Caribbean and South American plates in this region, the basin has a unique structural and stratigraphic relationship. The Columbus Basin has been a prime area for hydrocarbon exploration and production as its structures, sediments and burial history provide ideal conditions for generation and storage of hydrocarbon reserves. The Columbus Basin serves as a depocenter for the Orinoco River delta, where it is infilled with 15 km of fluvio-deltaic sediment. The area has also been extensively deformed by series of north west to southeast normal faults and northeast to southwest trending anticline structures.
Hanna Shoal is a shallow, natural shoal located off the coast of northwest Alaska in the Chukchi Sea. The region around Hanna Shoal is one of the Chukchi Sea’s most biologically productive areas.
Harrison Bay is an estuary located north of Alaska that opens into the Beaufort Sea. It is adjacent to the Colville Delta. The powerful outflow of the Colville River creates a shallow region that is rich with nutrients, making it ecologically significant for wildlife.
Colville Delta is a river delta in northern Alaska that flows into Harrison Bay. The delta is so flat that it has been said that it is indiscernible where the river ends and the ocean begins. The powerful outflow of the Colville River creates a shallow region that is rich with nutrients, making it ecologically significant for wildlife.
Barrow Canyon is a submarine canyon that straddles the boundary between the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Compared to other nearby areas and the Canada Basin, the highly productive Barrow Canyon supports a diversity of marine animals and invertebrates.
Smith Bay is an estuary in the Beaufort Sea that supports a wide range of fish, birds, and marine mammals. It is located northeast of Point Barrow, Alaska. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recognizes the southeastern portion of Barrow Canyon, which covers some, but not all, of Smith Bay, as an Environmentally Important Area.
Herald Shoal is a region of high benthic productivity on the Chukchi Sea shelf. It serves as rich foraging habitat for many species of marine mammals and birds.
The Marine Policy of the Barack Obama administration comprises several significant environmental policy decisions for the oceans made during his two terms in office from 2009 to 2017. By executive action, US President Barack Obama increased fourfold the amount of protected marine space in waters under United States control, setting a major precedent for global ocean conservation. Using the U.S. president's authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, he expanded to 200 nautical miles the seaward limits of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument around the U.S. island possessions in the Central Pacific. In the Atlantic, Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the first marine monument in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Atlantic.
The Wessex Basin is a petroleum-bearing geological area located along the southern coast of England and extending into the English Channel. The onshore part of the basin covers approximately 20,000 km2 and the area that encompasses the English Channel is of similar size. The basin is a rift basin that was created during the Permian to early Cretaceous in response to movement of the African plate relative to the Eurasian plate. In the late Cretaceous, and again in the Cenozoic, the basin was inverted as a distant effect of the Alpine orogeny. The basin is usually divided into 3 main sub-basins including the Winterborne-Kingston Trough, Channel Basin, and Vale of Pewsey Basin. The area is also rich in hydrocarbons with several offshore wells in the area. With the large interest in the hydrocarbon exploration of the area, data became more readily available, which improved the understanding of the type of inversion tectonics that characterize this basin.
Whaling in Canada encompasses both aboriginal and commercial whaling, and has existed on all three Canadian oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast have whaling traditions dating back millennia, and the hunting of cetaceans continues by Inuit. By the late 20th century, watching whales was a more profitable enterprise than hunting them.
The Canadian Arctic Rift System is a major North American geological structure extending from the Labrador Sea in the southeast through Davis Strait, Baffin Bay and the Arctic Archipelago in the northwest. It consists of a series of interconnected rifts that formed during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Extensional stresses along the entire length of the rift system have resulted in a variety of tectonic features, including grabens, half-grabens, basins and faults.
