Part of the ocean, going into the land - what is it?

Often in various test tasks or even crossword puzzles there is such a task: "the part of the ocean going into the land is ..." Most often the answer to this question is "the sea". But is it really so? Before answering this question, let us consider what parts of the ocean are composed of.

World Ocean

All the water covering most of the earth is called the world's oceans, the largest 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 arbitrarily along the coastline, the bottom relief, the current systems, the features of water distribution.

Seas

Part of the ocean, going into the land, though slightly (in most cases), is called the sea. Almost all of them are identified by islands, above water elevations and so on. The only sea that does not have shores is the Sargasso Sea, this is part of the ocean, not bounded by land on either side. The sea covers about 10% of the world's oceans. The biggest in the area is the Philippine one.

From the open part of the ocean, the sea is distinguished by a unique hydrological regime and some other peculiarities resulting from a kind of isolation, a significant impact of land and slow currents.

The seas are divided by location into the outlying ones, located on the border of land with the sea, internal, located inside the continents, and inter-island, located in a ring or some, sometimes conditional, fencing of a group of islands.

The sea basins can be continental and oceanic, differing in the way they form basins and, correspondingly, in depth. So, the continental ones arose as a result of the increase in water in the ocean from melted glaciers. Oceans are formed in places of faults of the earth's crust. Basically - it's intermaterian seas, with fairly symmetrical basins.

The coastline of the seas is most often uneven, with various bends and peninsulas. Along the coast there can be islands separated from each other by straits.

Bays

This is part of the ocean, going into the land deep enough. From the oceans are insulated insignificantly. Can be divided into types:

- Fjords. These are long and narrow bays, which have a significant depth and steep banks. They lie in mountainous areas. Most often occur in places of tectonic faults.

- Limans. These are small bays, formed on the places of river mouths, flooded by the sea.

- The lagoons. Located along the coast, separated from it by braids.

Sometimes the bays are divided by size. Champion in size - Bay of Bengal. Its depth is 4519 meters, and the area - 2191 thousand square kilometers.

There are cases when similar in size and size of water bodies are called differently. For example, the Bay of Bengal has a similar area with the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea is close in area to the Persian Gulf. The point here is that these objects are named in ancient times, when there were no clear definitions. To give such large geographical objects new names does not make sense.

Straits

Part of the ocean, going into the land is deep enough. Has a relatively small width, separates the land areas or connects reservoirs.

Straits are divided into narrow and wide, long and short, deep and long. Also there are flow passages and exchange. In the flowing current is always one way. Exchange, however, surprises with different currents at opposite banks or at different depth levels.

Thus, what is called the part of the ocean, should be considered in each particular case, bearing in mind other signs, in addition to the fact that it goes into the dry land. After all, as we have already understood, most of the parts of the ocean go into the land, although some of them are more, some less.