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The Black Sea is a
marginal Marginal may refer to: * ''Marginal'' (album), the third album of the Belgian rock band Dead Man Ray, released in 2001 * ''Marginal'' (manga) * '' El Marginal'', Argentine TV series * Marginal seat or marginal constituency or marginal, in polit ...
mediterranean sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
of the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
lying between
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
, east of the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, south of the East European Plain, west of the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
, and north of
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is supplied by major rivers, principally the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
,
Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...
, and Don. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its
drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
includes parts of 24 countries in Europe. The Black Sea covers (not including the Sea of Azov), has a maximum depth of , and a volume of . Most of its coasts ascend rapidly. These rises are the Pontic Mountains to the south, bar the southwest-facing peninsulas, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Crimean Mountains to the mid-north. In the west, the coast is generally small floodplains below foothills such as the Strandzha;
Cape Emine Cape Emine ( bg, Нос Емине ) is a headland located at the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is located south of Varna, north of Burgas and south of Obzor. It forms the tip of Stara Planina. Cape Emine is said to be Bulgaria's stormiest c ...
, a dwindling of the east end of the Balkan Mountains; and the Dobruja Plateau considerably farther north. The longest east–west extent is about . Important cities along the coast include Odessa, Varna, Samsun, Sochi, Sevastopol, Constanța, Trabzon, Novorossiysk, Burgas, and
Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's ...
. The Black Sea has a positive water balance, with an annual net outflow of per year through the
Bosporus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
and the Dardanelles into the
Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...
. While the net flow of water through the Bosporus and Dardanelles (known collectively as the Turkish Straits) is out of the Black Sea, water generally flows in both directions simultaneously: Denser, more saline water from the Aegean flows into the Black Sea underneath the less dense, fresher water that flows out of the Black Sea. This creates a significant and permanent layer of deep water that does not drain or mix and is therefore
anoxic The term anoxia means a total depletion in the level of oxygen, an extreme form of hypoxia or "low oxygen". The terms anoxia and hypoxia are used in various contexts: * Anoxic waters, sea water, fresh water or groundwater that are depleted of diss ...
. This anoxic layer is responsible for the preservation of
ancient shipwrecks Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history c ...
which have been found in the Black Sea. The Black Sea ultimately drains into the
Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
, via the Turkish Straits and the Aegean Sea. The
Bosporus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
strait connects it to the small Sea of Marmara which in turn is connected to the Aegean Sea via the strait of the Dardanelles. To the north, the Black Sea is connected to the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait. The water level has varied significantly over geological time. Due to these variations in the water level in the basin, the surrounding shelf and associated aprons have sometimes been dry land. At certain critical water levels, connections with surrounding water bodies can become established. It is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. During geological periods when this hydrological link was not present, the Black Sea was an endorheic basin, operating independently of the global ocean system (similar to the
Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
today). Currently, the Black Sea water level is relatively high; thus, water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The
Black Sea undersea river The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosphorus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river, announced on 1 August 2010, was made by scientists at the University o ...
is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the
seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most o ...
of the Black Sea, the first of its kind discovered.


Name


Modern names

Current names of the sea are usually equivalents of the English name "Black Sea", including these given in the countries bordering the sea: * ab, Амшын Еиқәа, translit=Amšyn Eiķa̋a, * ady, Хы шӏуцӏэ, translit=Xı Ş́uts’ə, * hy, Սեւ ծով, translit=Sev tsov, * bg, Черно море, translit=Cherno more, * crh, Къара денъиз, translit=Qara deñiz * ka, შავი ზღვა, ''shavi zghva'' * Laz and xmf, უჩა ზუღა, translit=Ucha Zugha, , or simply , , "Sea" * ro, Marea Neagră, * russian: Чёрное мо́рe, Chyornoye móre, * tr, Karadeniz, * uk, Чорне море, translit=Chorne more, Such names have not yet been shown conclusively to predate the 13th century. In
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
, the historical name "Euxine Sea", which holds a different meaning (see below), is still widely used: *, , lit. "Hospitable Sea"; the name ''()'', , lit. "Black Sea" is used, but is much less common.


Historical names and etymology

The earliest known name of the Black Sea is the sea of Zalpa, so called by both the Hattians and their conquerers the
Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-cent ...
. The Hattic city of
Zalpa Zalpuwa, also Zalpa, was a still-undiscovered Bronze Age city in Anatolia of around the 18th century BC. Its history is largely known from the Proclamation of Anitta, CTH 1. But the Zalpa mentioned in the Annals of Hattusili I, CTH 4, is now c ...
was “situated probably at or near the estuary of the Marrassantiya River, the modern Kızıl Irmak, on the Black Sea coast.” The principal Greek name ''Póntos Áxeinos'' is generally accepted to be a rendering of the Iranian word ("dark coloured"). Ancient Greek voyagers adopted the name as , identified with the Greek word (inhospitable). The name (Inhospitable Sea), first attested in Pindar (), was considered an ill omen and was euphemized to its opposite, (Hospitable Sea), also first attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation in Greek, although in mythological contexts the "true" name remained favoured.
Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...
's '' Geographica'' (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often simply called "the Sea" ( ). He thought that the sea was called the "Inhospitable Sea by the inhabitants of the Pontus region of the southern shoreline before Greek colonisation due to its difficult navigation and hostile barbarian natives (7.3.6), and that the name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians colonised the region, bringing it into the Greek world. Popular supposition derives "Black Sea" from the dark colour of the water or climatic conditions. Some scholars understand the name to be derived from a system of colour symbolism representing the cardinal directions, with black or dark for north, red for south, white for west, and green or light blue for east. Hence "Black Sea" meant "Northern Sea". According to this scheme, the name could only have originated with a people living between the northern (black) and southern (red) seas: this points to the Achaemenids (550–330  BC). In the Greater Bundahishn, a
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle P ...
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
scripture, the Black Sea is called . In the tenth-century Persian geography book , the Black Sea is called ''Georgian Sea'' (). '' The Georgian Chronicles'' use the name (Sea of Speri) after the Kartvelian tribe of Speris or
Saspers Saspeires ( grc, Σάσπειρες, ka, სასპერები, ''sasp'erebi'', other names include Saspers, Saspines, Sapinians, and Sapirians) are a people of uncertain origin mentioned by Herodotus. According to the most widespread theory ...
. Other modern names such as and (both meaning Black Sea) originated during the 13th century. A 1570 map from
Abraham Ortelius Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the '' Theatrum Orbis Terraru ...
's labels the sea (Great Sea), compare Latin . English writers of the 18th century often used ''Euxine Sea'' ( or ). During the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
, it was called either or , both meaning "Black Sea" in Turkish, with the former consisting of Perso-Arabic . Another assumption is related to the Turkish.
Turkic peoples The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging to ...
marked the directions with colours. In ancient Turkish mythology, black represents the north, white represents the west, blue represents the east, red represents the south and yellow represents the center. According to Chinese sources, the horses with red colour in the
Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...
s were in the south, and the black ones were in the north; they sent gray horses to the East and white horses to the West. In Old Uyghur, the north was represented by the ''qara yılan'' ("black snake") and the south was the ''qızıl sagızgan'' ("red magpie"). When the Turkomans entered Anatolia, the Black Sea was in the north and therefore it was called Kara ("black"); the Mediterranean was in the west (according to the direction of Turkomans entering Anatolia), hence it was named Ak ("white"). (Also the
Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
was named Red because it was in the south.) Since the Black Sea was controlled mostly by the Turks for centuries, it can easily have been borrowed by other languages in the Black Sea coast. In addition, the emergence of the name coincides with the arrival of the Turks in Anatolia.


Geography

The
International Hydrographic Organization The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is an intergovernmental organisation representing hydrography. , the IHO comprised 98 Member States. A principal aim of the IHO is to ensure that the world's seas, oceans and navigable waters ...
defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows: The area surrounding the Black Sea is commonly referred to as the ''Black Sea Region''. Its northern part lies within the '' Chernozem belt'' (black soil belt) which goes from eastern Croatia ( Slavonia), along the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
(northern Serbia, northern Bulgaria ( Danubian Plain) and southern Romania ( Wallachian Plain)) to northeast Ukraine and further across the
Central Black Earth Region The Central Black Earth Region, Central Chernozem Region or ''Chernozemie'' (russian: Центрально-черноземная область, Центральная черноземная область, Центрально-черноз ...
and southern Russia into Siberia. The
littoral zone The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal ...
of the Black Sea is often referred to as the Pontic littoral or Pontic zone. The largest
bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...
s of the Black Sea are
Karkinit Bay Karkinit, Karkinitski, Carcinites, or Karkinitsky Bay ( uk, Каркінітська затока, ''Karkinits’ka zatoka''; russian: Каркинитский залив, ''Karkinitskiy zaliv'') is a bay of the Black Sea that separates the no ...
in Ukraine; the
Gulf of Burgas Gulf of Burgas or Burgas Bay ( bg, Бургаски залив, ''Burgaski zaliv'') between the coastline and the straight line joining Cape Emine and Cape Maslen nos is the largest bay of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and one of the largest in th ...
in Bulgaria; Dnieprovski Bay and Dniestrovski Bay, both in Ukraine; and Sinop Bay and Samsun Bay, both in Turkey.


Coastline and exclusive economic zones


Drainage basin

The largest
river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...
s flowing into the Black Sea are: #
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
#
Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...
# Don #
Dniester The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and t ...
# Kızılırmak # Kuban # Sakarya # Southern Bug # Çoruh # Yeşilırmak # Rioni # Yeya # Mius # Kamchiya #
Enguri The Enguri ( ka, ენგური, tr, xmf, ინგირი, ingiri, ab, Егры, ''Egry'' russian: Ингури, ''Inguri'') is a river in western Georgia. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .Kalmius #
Molochna The Molochna (, russian: Моло́чная ''Molochnaya''), is a river in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of south Ukraine. Literally the name of the river translates as Milky. The river is connected with the Russian Mennonite culture, once based in the ...
# Tylihul # Velykyi Kuialnyk #
Veleka The Veleka ( , ) is a river in the very southeast of Bulgaria (Burgas Province), as well as the very northeast of European Turkey. It is 147 km long, of which 108 km lies in BulgariaRezovo # Kodori # Bzyb # Supsa # Mzymta These rivers and their tributaries comprise a Black Sea drainage basin that covers wholly or partially 24 countries: # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #


Islands

Some islands in the Black Sea belong to Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine: * St. Thomas Island – Bulgaria *
St. Anastasia Island St. Anastasia Island ( bg, остров св. Анастасия, ''ostrov Sv. Anastasiya'', formerly called ''Bolshevik Island'', ''остров Болшевик'') is a Bulgarian islet in the Black Sea. It is located 1.5 km off the coast n ...
– Bulgaria * St. Cyricus Island – Bulgaria * St. Ivan Island – Bulgaria * St. Peter Island – Bulgaria * Sacalinu Mare Island – Romania * Sacalinu Mic Island – Romania * Misura / Novaya Zemliya – Romania and Ukraine * Utrish Island * Krupinin Island * Sudiuk Island * Kefken Island * Oreke Island * Giresun Island - Turkey * Dzharylgach Island – Ukraine * Zmiinyi (Snake) Island – Ukraine


Climate

Short-term climatic variation in the Black Sea region is significantly influenced by the operation of the North Atlantic oscillation, the climatic mechanisms resulting from the interaction between the north Atlantic and mid-latitude air masses. While the exact mechanisms causing the North Atlantic Oscillation remain unclear, it is thought the climate conditions established in western Europe mediate the heat and precipitation fluxes reaching Central Europe and Eurasia, regulating the formation of winter cyclones, which are largely responsible for regional
precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
inputs and influence Mediterranean sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The relative strength of these systems also limits the amount of cold air arriving from northern regions during winter. Other influencing factors include the regional
topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...
, as depressions and storm systems arriving from the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
are funneled through the low land around the Bosporus, with the Pontic and
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
mountain ranges acting as waveguides, limiting the speed and paths of cyclones passing through the region.


Geology and bathymetry

The Black Sea is divided into two depositional basins—the Western Black Sea and Eastern Black Sea—separated by the Mid-Black Sea High, which includes the Andrusov Ridge, Tetyaev High, and Archangelsky High, extending south from the Crimean Peninsula. The basin includes two distinct relict back-arc basins which were initiated by the splitting of an Albian volcanic arc and the
subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, ...
of both the Paleo- and Neo- Tethys oceans, but the timings of these events remain uncertain. Arc volcanism and extension occurred as the Neo-Tethys Ocean subducted under the southern margin of Laurasia during the Mesozoic. Uplift and compressional deformation took place as the Neotethys continued to close. Seismic surveys indicate that rifting began in the Western Black Sea in the
Barremian The Barremian is an age in the geologic timescale (or a chronostratigraphic stage) between 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago) and 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma). It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous Epoch (or Lower Cretaceous Series). It is preceded ...
and Aptian followed by the formation of oceanic crust 20 million years later in the Santonian. Since its initiation, compressional tectonic environments led to subsidence in the basin, interspersed with extensional phases resulting in large-scale volcanism and numerous
orogenies Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted t ...
, causing the uplift of the Greater Caucasus,
Pontides The Pontic Mountains or Pontic Alps ( Turkish: ''Kuzey Anadolu Dağları'', meaning North Anatolian Mountains) form a mountain range in northern Anatolia, Turkey. They are also known as the ''Parhar Mountains'' in the local Turkish and Pontic G ...
, southern Crimean Peninsula and Balkanides mountain ranges. During the Messinian salinity crisis in the neighboring Mediterranean Sea, water levels fell but without drying up the sea. The collision between the
Eurasian Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipela ...
and African plates and westward escape of the Anatolian block along the North Anatolian and East Anatolian faults dictates the current tectonic regime, which features enhanced subsidence in the Black Sea basin and significant volcanic activity in the Anatolian region. These geological mechanisms, in the long term, have caused the periodic isolations of the Black Sea from the rest of the global ocean system. The large shelf to the north of the basin is up to wide and features a shallow apron with gradients between 1:40 and 1:1000. The southern edge around Turkey and the eastern edge around Georgia, however, are typified by a narrow shelf that rarely exceeds in width and a steep apron that is typically 1:40 gradient with numerous submarine canyons and channel extensions. The Euxine abyssal plain in the centre of the Black Sea reaches a maximum depth of just south of Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.


Chronostratigraphy

The Paleo- Euxinian is described by the accumulation of eolian silt deposits (related to the
Riss glaciation The Riss glaciation, Riss Glaciation, Riss ice age, Riss Ice Age, Riss glacial or Riss Glacial (german: Riß-Kaltzeit, ', ' or (obsolete) ') is the second youngest glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch in the traditional, quadripartite glacial classi ...
) and the lowering of sea levels (
MIS MIS or mis may refer to: Science and technology * Management information system * Marine isotope stage, stages of the Earth's climate * Maximal independent set, in graph theory * Metal-insulator-semiconductor, e.g., in MIS capacitor * Minimally i ...
6, 8 and 10). The Karangat
marine transgression A marine transgression is a geologic event during which sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, which results in flooding. Transgressions can be caused by the land sinking or by the ocean basins filling ...
occurred during the
Eemian Interglacial The Eemian (also called the last interglacial, Sangamonian Stage, Ipswichian, Mikulin, Kaydaky, penultimate,NOAA - Penultimate Interglacial Period http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warming/penultimate-interglacial-period Valdivia or Riss-Würm) wa ...
(MIS 5e). This may have been the highest sea levels reached in the late
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
. Based on this some scholars have suggested that the Crimean Peninsula was isolated from the mainland by a shallow strait during the Eemian Interglacial. The Neoeuxinian transgression began with an inflow of waters from the
Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
. Neoeuxinian deposits are found in the Black Sea below water depth in three layers. The upper layers correspond with the peak of the Khvalinian transgression, on the shelf shallow-water sands and coquina mixed with silty sands and brackish-water fauna, and inside the Black Sea Depression hydrotroilite silts. The middle layers on the shelf are sands with brackish-water mollusc shells. Of continental origin, the lower level on the shelf is mostly
alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. ...
sands with pebbles, mixed with less common lacustrine silts and freshwater mollusc shells. Inside the Black Sea Depression they are terrigenous non-carbonate
silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel ...
s, and at the foot of the continental slope turbidite sediments.


Hydrology

The Black Sea is the world's largest body of water with a meromictic basin. The deep waters do not mix with the upper layers of water that receive oxygen from the atmosphere. As a result, over 90% of the deeper Black Sea volume is
anoxic The term anoxia means a total depletion in the level of oxygen, an extreme form of hypoxia or "low oxygen". The terms anoxia and hypoxia are used in various contexts: * Anoxic waters, sea water, fresh water or groundwater that are depleted of diss ...
water. The Black Sea's circulation patterns are primarily controlled by basin topography and fluvial inputs, which result in a strongly stratified vertical structure. Because of the extreme stratification, it is classified as a salt wedge estuary. The Black Sea experiences water transfer only with the
Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
, so all inflow and outflow occurs through the
Bosporus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
and Dardanelles. Inflow from the Mediterranean has a higher salinity and density than the outflow, creating the classic estuarine circulation. This means that the inflow of dense water from the Mediterranean occurs at the bottom of the basin while the outflow of fresher Black Sea surface-water into the Sea of Marmara occurs near the surface. According to Gregg (2002), the outflow is or around , and the inflow is or around .Gregg, M. C., and E. O¨ zsoy (2002), Flow, water mass changes, and hydraulics in the Bosporus, ''J. Geophys. Res.'', 107(C3), 3016,
The following water budget can be estimated: * Water IN: ** Total river discharge: ** Precipitation: ** Inflow via Bosporus: * Water OUT: ** Evaporation: (reduced greatly since the 1970s) ** Outflow via Bosporus: The southern sill of the Bosporus is located at below present sea level (deepest spot of the shallowest cross-section in the Bosporus, located in front of Dolmabahçe Palace) and has a wet section of around . Inflow and outflow current speeds are averaged around , but much higher speeds are found locally, inducing significant turbulence and vertical shear. This allows for turbulent mixing of the two layers.''Descriptive Physical Oceanography''. Talley, Pickard, Emery, Swift. Surface water leaves the Black Sea with a salinity of 17 practical salinity units (PSU) and reaches the Mediterranean with a salinity of 34 PSU. Likewise, an inflow of the Mediterranean with salinity 38.5 PSU experiences a decrease to about 34 PSU. Mean surface circulation is cyclonic; waters around the perimeter of the Black Sea circulate in a basin-wide shelfbreak gyre known as the Rim Current. The Rim Current has a maximum velocity of about . Within this feature, two smaller cyclonic gyres operate, occupying the eastern and western sectors of the basin. The Eastern and Western Gyres are well-organized systems in the winter but dissipate into a series of interconnected
eddies In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid is in a turbulent flow regime. The moving fluid creates a space devoid of downstream-flowing fluid on the downstream side of the object. Fluid ...
in the summer and autumn. Mesoscale activity in the peripheral flow becomes more pronounced during these warmer seasons and is subject to interannual variability. Outside of the Rim Current, numerous quasi-permanent coastal eddies are formed as a result of upwelling around the coastal apron and "wind curl" mechanisms. The intra-annual strength of these features is controlled by seasonal atmospheric and fluvial variations. During the spring, the Batumi eddy forms in the southeastern corner of the sea. Beneath the surface waters—from about —there exists a
halocline In oceanography, a halocline (from Greek ''hals'', ''halos'' 'salt' and ''klinein'' 'to slope') is a cline, a subtype of chemocline caused by a strong, vertical salinity gradient within a body of water. Because salinity (in concert with te ...
that stops at the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL). This layer is composed of cool, salty surface waters, which are the result of localized atmospheric cooling and decreased fluvial input during the winter months. It is the remnant of the winter surface mixed layer. The base of the CIL is marked by a major pycnocline at about , and this density disparity is the major mechanism for isolation of the deep water. Below the pycnocline is the Deep Water mass, where salinity increases to 22.3 PSU and temperatures rise to around . The hydrochemical environment shifts from oxygenated to anoxic, as bacterial decomposition of sunken biomass utilizes all of the free oxygen. Weak geothermal heating and long
residence time The residence time of a fluid parcel is the total time that the parcel has spent inside a control volume (e.g.: a chemical reactor, a lake, a human body). The residence time of a set of parcels is quantified in terms of the frequency distribu ...
create a very thick convective bottom layer. The
Black Sea undersea river The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosphorus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river, announced on 1 August 2010, was made by scientists at the University o ...
is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the
seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most o ...
of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river, announced on August 1, 2010, was made by scientists at the
University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...
and is the first of its kind to be identified. The undersea river stems from salty water spilling through the Bosporus Strait from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content.


Hydrochemistry

Because of the anoxic water at depth, organic matter, including anthropogenic artifacts such as boat hulls, are well preserved. During periods of high surface productivity, short-lived algal blooms form organic rich layers known as sapropels. Scientists have reported an annual phytoplankton bloom that can be seen in many NASA images of the region. As a result of these characteristics the Black Sea has gained interest from the field of
marine archaeology Maritime archaeology (also known as marine archaeology) is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, s ...
, as ancient shipwrecks in excellent states of preservation have been discovered, such as the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
wreck
Sinop D Sinop D is an ancient Black Sea shipwreck located to the east of Sinop, Turkey. The ship was discovered by a team led by Robert Ballard with Dan Davis in 2000. The team discovered the well-preserved wreck at a 320 m depth, in the Black Sea's deep ...
, located in the anoxic layer off the coast of Sinop, Turkey. Modelling shows that, in the event of an asteroid impact on the Black Sea, the release of hydrogen sulfide clouds would pose a threat to health—and perhaps even life—for people living on the Black Sea coast. There have been isolated reports of flares on the Black Sea occurring during thunderstorms, possibly caused by lightning igniting combustible gas seeping up from the sea depths.


Ecology


Marine

The Black Sea supports an active and dynamic marine ecosystem, dominated by species suited to the
brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estua ...
, nutrient-rich, conditions. As with all marine food webs, the Black Sea features a range of trophic groups, with autotrophic algae, including diatoms and dinoflagellates, acting as primary producers. The fluvial systems draining Eurasia and central Europe introduce large volumes of sediment and dissolved nutrients into the Black Sea, but the distribution of these nutrients is controlled by the degree of physiochemical stratification, which is, in turn, dictated by seasonal physiographic development. During winter, strong wind promotes convective overturning and upwelling of nutrients, while high summer temperatures result in a marked vertical stratification and a warm, shallow mixed layer. Day length and insolation intensity also control the extent of the photic zone. Subsurface productivity is limited by nutrient availability, as the anoxic bottom waters act as a sink for reduced nitrate, in the form of
ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous ...
. The benthic zone also plays an important role in Black Sea nutrient cycling, as chemosynthetic organisms and anoxic geochemical pathways recycle nutrients which can be upwelled to the photic zone, enhancing productivity. In total, the Black Sea's biodiversity contains around one-third of the Mediterranean's and is experiencing natural and artificial invasions or "Mediterranizations".


Phytoplankton

The main phytoplankton groups present in the Black Sea are dinoflagellates, diatoms,
coccolithophore Coccolithophores, or coccolithophorids, are single celled organisms which are part of the phytoplankton, the autotrophic (self-feeding) component of the plankton community. They form a group of about 200 species, and belong either to the king ...
s and cyanobacteria. Generally, the annual cycle of phytoplankton development comprises significant diatom and dinoflagellate-dominated spring production, followed by a weaker mixed assemblage of community development below the seasonal thermocline during summer months, and surface-intensified autumn production. This pattern of productivity is augmented by an '' Emiliania huxleyi'' bloom during the late spring and summer months. * Dinoflagellates : Annual dinoflagellate distribution is defined by an extended bloom period in subsurface waters during the late spring and summer. In November, subsurface plankton production is combined with surface production, due to vertical mixing of water masses and nutrients such as nitrite. The major bloom-forming dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea is '' Gymnodinium'' sp. Estimates of dinoflagellate diversity in the Black Sea range from 193 to 267 species. This level of species richness is relatively low in comparison to the Mediterranean Sea, which is attributable to the brackish conditions, low water transparency and presence of
anoxic The term anoxia means a total depletion in the level of oxygen, an extreme form of hypoxia or "low oxygen". The terms anoxia and hypoxia are used in various contexts: * Anoxic waters, sea water, fresh water or groundwater that are depleted of diss ...
bottom waters. It is also possible that the low winter temperatures below of the Black Sea prevent thermophilous species from becoming established. The relatively high organic matter content of Black Sea surface water favor the development of
heterotroph A heterotroph (; ) is an organism that cannot produce its own food, instead taking nutrition from other sources of organic carbon, mainly plant or animal matter. In the food chain, heterotrophs are primary, secondary and tertiary consumers, but ...
ic (an organism that uses organic carbon for growth) and mixotrophic dinoflagellates species (able to exploit different trophic pathways), relative to autotrophs. Despite its unique hydrographic setting, there are no confirmed
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
dinoflagellate species in the Black Sea. * Diatoms : The Black Sea is populated by many species of the marine diatom, which commonly exist as colonies of unicellular, non-motile auto- and heterotrophic algae. The life-cycle of most diatoms can be described as 'boom and bust' and the Black Sea is no exception, with diatom blooms occurring in surface waters throughout the year, most reliably during March. In simple terms, the phase of rapid population growth in diatoms is caused by the in-wash of
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ...
-bearing terrestrial sediments, and when the supply of silicon is exhausted, the diatoms begin to sink out of the photic zone and produce resting cysts. Additional factors such as predation by zooplankton and ammonium-based regenerated production also have a role to play in the annual diatom cycle. Typically, blooms during spring and blooms during the autumn. *
Coccolithophore Coccolithophores, or coccolithophorids, are single celled organisms which are part of the phytoplankton, the autotrophic (self-feeding) component of the plankton community. They form a group of about 200 species, and belong either to the king ...
s : Coccolithophores are a type of motile, autotrophic phytoplankton that produce CaCO3 plates, known as
coccolith Coccoliths are individual plates or scales of calcium carbonate formed by coccolithophores (single-celled phytoplankton such as '' Emiliania huxleyi'') and cover the cell surface arranged in the form of a spherical shell, called a ''coccosphere' ...
s, as part of their life cycle. In the Black Sea, the main period of coccolithophore growth occurs after the bulk of the dinoflagellate growth has taken place. In May, the dinoflagellates move below the seasonal thermocline into deeper waters, where more nutrients are available. This permits coccolithophores to utilize the nutrients in the upper waters, and by the end of May, with favorable light and temperature conditions, growth rates reach their highest. The major bloom-forming species is , which is also responsible for the release of dimethyl sulfide into the atmosphere. Overall, coccolithophore diversity is low in the Black Sea, and although recent sediments are dominated by and ,
Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...
sediments have been shown to also contain Helicopondosphaera and Discolithina species. * Cyanobacteria : Cyanobacteria are a phylum of picoplanktonic (plankton ranging in size from 0.2 to 2.0
µm The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer ( American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Uni ...
)
bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...
that obtain their energy via
photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored in ...
, and are present throughout the world's oceans. They exhibit a range of morphologies, including filamentous colonies and
biofilm A biofilm comprises any syntrophic consortium of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and often also to a surface. These adherent cells become embedded within a slimy extracellular matrix that is composed of extracellular po ...
s. In the Black Sea, several species are present, and as an example, ''Synechococcus'' spp. can be found throughout the photic zone, although concentration decreases with increasing depth. Other factors which exert an influence on distribution include nutrient availability, predation, and salinity.


Animal species

* Zebra mussel : The Black Sea along with the
Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
is part of the zebra mussel's native range. The mussel has been accidentally introduced around the world and become an invasive species where it has been introduced. * Common carp : The common carp's native range extends to the Black Sea along with the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea. Like the zebra mussel, the common carp is an invasive species when introduced to other habitats. *
Round goby The round goby (''Neogobius melanostomus'') is a fish. Defined as a euryhaline bottom-dwelling goby of the family Gobiidae, it is native to Central Eurasia, including the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Round gobies have established large no ...
: Another native fish that is also found in the Caspian Sea. It preys upon zebra mussels. Like the mussels and common carp, it has become invasive when introduced to other environments, like the
Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
in North America. * Marine mammals and marine megafauna : Marine mammals present within the basin include two species of dolphin ( common and bottlenose) and the harbour porpoise, although all of these are endangered due to pressures and impacts by human activities. All three species have been classified as distinct subspecies from those in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and are endemic to the Black and Azov seas, and are more active during nights in the Turkish Straits.First stranding record of a Risso's Dolphin (Grampus griseus) in the Marmara Sea, Turkey
(pdf). Retrieved on September 6, 2017
However, construction of the Crimean Bridge has caused increases in nutrients and planktons in the waters, attracting large numbers of fish and more than 1,000 bottlenose dolphins. However, others claim that construction may cause devastating damages on the ecosystem, including dolphins. : Mediterranean monk seals, now critically endangered, were historically abundant in the Black Sea, and are regarded to have become extinct from the basin in 1997. Monk seals were present at Snake Island, near the Danube Delta, until 1950s, and several locations such as the and
Doğankent Doğankent is a town in Giresun Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is the seat of Doğankent District.
were the last of the seals' hauling-out sites post-1990. Very few animals still thrive in the Sea of Marmara. : Ongoing Mediterranizations may or may not boost cetacean diversity in the Turkish Straits and hence in the Black and Azov basins. : Various species of
pinniped Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the ...
s, sea otter, and
beluga whale The beluga whale () (''Delphinapterus leucas'') 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 ...
were introduced into the Black Sea by mankind and later escaped either by accidental or purported causes. Of these,
grey seal The grey seal (''Halichoerus grypus'') is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. In Latin Halichoerus grypus means "hook-nosed sea pig". It is a large seal of the family Phocidae, which are commonly referred to as "true seals" o ...
s and beluga whales have been recorded with successful, long-term occurrences. :
Great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major oceans. It is nota ...
s are known to reach into the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait and basking sharks into the Dardanelles, although it is unclear whether or not these sharks may reach into the Black and Azov basins.


Ecological effects of pollution

Since the 1960s, rapid industrial expansion along the Black Sea coastline and the construction of a major dam has significantly increased annual variability in the N:P:Si ratio in the basin. In coastal areas, the biological effect of these changes has been an increase in the frequency of monospecific phytoplankton blooms, with diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 2.5 and non-diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 6. The non-diatoms, such as the prymnesiophytes (coccolithophore), sp., and the Euglenophyte , are able to out-compete diatom species because of the limited availability of silicon, a necessary constituent of diatom frustules. As a consequence of these blooms, benthic macrophyte populations were deprived of light, while anoxia caused mass mortality in marine animals. The decline in macrophytes was further compounded by overfishing during the 1970s, while the invasive ctenophore ''Mnemiopsis'' reduced the biomass of copepods and other zooplankton in the late 1980s. Additionally, an alien species—the warty comb jelly ()—was able to establish itself in the basin, exploding from a few individuals to an estimated biomass of one billion metric tons. The change in species composition in Black Sea waters also has consequences for hydrochemistry, as calcium-producing coccolithophores influence salinity and pH, although these ramifications have yet to be fully quantified. In central Black Sea waters, silicon levels were also significantly reduced, due to a decrease in the flux of silicon associated with advection across isopycnal surfaces. This phenomenon demonstrates the potential for localized alterations in Black Sea nutrient input to have basin-wide effects. Pollution reduction and regulation efforts have led to a partial recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem during the 1990s, and an EU monitoring exercise, 'EROS21', revealed decreased nitrogen and phosphorus values, relative to the 1989 peak. Recently, scientists have noted signs of ecological recovery, in part due to the construction of new
sewage treatment Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding en ...
plants in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in connection with membership in the European Union. populations have been checked with the arrival of another alien species which feeds on them. File:black sea fauna jelly 01.jpg,
Jellyfish Jellyfish and sea jellies are the informal common names given to the medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, a major part of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbre ...
File:black sea fauna actinia 01.jpg, Actinia File:black sea fauna actinia 02.JPG, Actinia File:black sea fauna goby 01.jpg, Goby File:black sea fauna stingray 01.jpg, Stingray File:Black sea mullus barbatus ponticus 01.jpg, Goat fish File:Black sea fauna hermit crab 01.jpg, Hermit crab, '' Diogenes pugilator'' File:Black sea fauna blue sponge.jpg, Blue
sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate throu ...
File:Squalus acanthias2.jpg, Spiny dogfish File:Black Sea fauna Seahorse.JPG,
Seahorse A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or ...
File:Kitesurfer and Dolphins Cropped.jpg, Black Sea common dolphins with a kite-surfer off Sochi


History


Mediterranean connection during the Holocene

The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow
strait A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean chan ...
s, the Dardanelles and the
Bosporus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
. The Dardanelles is deep, and the Bosporus is as shallow as . By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than lower than they are now. There is evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after. In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the
Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...
rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess freshwater flowing over the Bosporus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. There are also catastrophic scenarios, such as the " Black Sea deluge hypothesis" put forward by William Ryan,
Walter Pitman Walter George Pitman (May 18, 1929 – June 12, 2018) was an educator and politician in Ontario, Canada. Background Born in Toronto, Ontario, he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1952 and a Master of Arts in 1954 from the University of Toronto. He ...
and
Petko Dimitrov Prof. Dr. Petko Stoyanov Dimitrov is a Bulgarian marine geologist and oceanographer from the Institute of Oceanology - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Varna. Biography Born on September 16, 1944 in the village of Novachene, Sofia Province. ...
.


Deluge hypothesis

The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the
Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
breaching a sill in the
Bosporus The Bosporus Strait (; grc, Βόσπορος ; tr, İstanbul Boğazı 'Istanbul strait', colloquially ''Boğaz'') or Bosphorus Strait is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul in northwestern Tu ...
Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
. While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating, and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths.


Recorded history

The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
to the west, the Eurasian
steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate gras ...
s to the north, the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
and
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
to the east,
Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
and
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
to the south, and
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
to the southwest. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis (in present-day Georgia), marked for the
ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
the edge of the known world. The steppes to the north of the Black Sea is now generally accepted as the original homeland () of the speakers of the
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
(PIE). Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with
colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
scattered along the Black Sea's southern coast, attracting traders and colonists due to the grain grown in the Black Sea hinterland. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea, and a lucrative trade-network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding
polis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...
, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own ''Black Sea Greek'' culture, known today as Pontic. The coastal communities of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the
Greek world In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
for centuries, and the realms of Mithridates of Pontus,
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
and
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
spanned the Black Sea to include
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...
n territories. The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of the Republic of Genoa losing control of the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400  ...
's old rival Ragusa. Black sea became a trade route of slaves between Crimea and Ottoman Anatolia. This restriction was challenged by the Russian Navy from 1783 until the relaxation of export controls in 1789 because of the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
. The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
(1914-1918) and saw both naval and land battles between 1941 and 1945 during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. During the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...
, the Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk.


Archaeology

The Black Sea was sailed by
Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-cent ...
,
Carians The Carians (; grc, Κᾶρες, ''Kares'', plural of , ''Kar'') were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia. Historical accounts Karkisa It is not clear when the Carians enter into history. The definition is dependent on ...
, Colchians,
Thracians The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...
,
Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, ot ...
, Persians, Cimmerians,
Scythians The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern * : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Cent ...
, Romans, Byzantines,
Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Euro ...
, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians, Genoese, Georgians, Bulgarians,
Tatars The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary
is an umbrella term for different Turki ...
and Ottomans. The concentration of historical powers, combined with the preservative qualities of the deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea, has attracted increased interest from marine archaeologists who have begun to discover a large number of ancient ships and organic remains in a high state of preservation.


Economy and politics

The Black Sea plays an integral part in the connection between Asia and Europe. In addition to sea ports and fishing, key activities include hydrocarbons exploration for oil and natural gas, and tourism. According to
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
, the Black Sea is a strategic corridor that provides smuggling channels for moving legal and illegal goods including drugs, radioactive materials, and counterfeit goods that can be used to finance terrorism.


Navigation

According to an International Transport Workers' Federation 2013 study, there were at least 30 operating merchant
seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...
s in the Black Sea (including at least 12 in
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
). There were also around 2,400 commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea.


Fishing

The Turkish commercial fishing fleet catches around 300,000 tons of anchovies per year. The fishery is carried out mainly in winter, and the highest portion of the stock is caught between November and December.


Hydrocarbon exploration

In the 1980s, the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
started
offshore drilling Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum that lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Most commonly, the t ...
for
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
in the sea's western portion (adjoining
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
's coast). Independent Ukraine continued and intensified that effort within its exclusive economic zone, inviting major international oil companies for exploration. Discovery of the new, massive oilfields in the area stimulated an influx of foreign investments. It also provoked a short-term peaceful territorial dispute with
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
which was resolved in 2011 by an international court redefining the exclusive economic zones between the two countries. The Black Sea contains oil and natural gas resources but exploration in the sea is incomplete. , 20 wells are in place. Throughout much of its existence, the Black Sea has had significant oil and gas-forming potential because of significant inflows of sediment and nutrient-rich waters. However, this varies geographically. For example, prospects are poorer off the coast of Bulgaria because of the large influx of sediment from the Danube which obscured sunlight and diluted organic-rich sediments. Many of the discoveries to date have taken place offshore of Romania in the Western Black Sea and only a few discoveries have been made in the Eastern Black Sea. During the
Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', ...
, the Paratethys Sea was partially isolated and sea levels fell. During this time sand shed off the rising Balkanide, Pontide and Caucasus mountains trapped organic material in the Maykop Suite of rocks through the Oligocene and early
Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
. Natural gas appears in rocks deposited in the Miocene and Pliocene by the paleo-Dnieper and paleo-Dniester rivers, or in deep-water Oligocene-age rocks. Serious exploration began in 1999 with two deep-water wells, Limanköy-1 and Limanköy-2, drilled in Turkish waters. Next, the HPX (Hopa)-1 deepwater well targeted late Miocene sandstone units in Achara-Trialet fold belt (also known as the Gurian fold belt) along the Georgia-Turkey maritime border. Although geologists inferred that these rocks might have hydrocarbons that migrated from the Maykop Suite, the well was unsuccessful. No more drilling happened for five years after the HPX-1 well. Then in 2010, Sinop-1 targeted carbonate reservoirs potentially charged from the nearby Maykop Suite on the Andrusov Ridge, but the well-struck only Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Yassihöyük-1 encountered similar problems. Other Turkish wells, Sürmene-1 and Sile-1 drilled in the Eastern Black Sea in 2011 and 2015 respectively tested four-way closures above Cretaceous volcanoes, with no results in either case. A different Turkish well, Kastamonu-1 drilled in 2011 did successfully find thermogenic gas in Pliocene and Miocene shale-cored anticlines in the Western Black Sea. A year later in 2012, Romania drilled Domino-1 which struck gas prompting the drilling of other wells in the Neptun Deep. In 2016, the Bulgarian well Polshkov-1 targeted Maykop Suite sandstones in the Polshkov High and Russia is in the process of drilling Jurassic carbonates on the Shatsky Ridge as of 2018. In August 2020,
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
found of natural gas in the biggest ever discovery in the Black Sea, and hoped to begin production in the Sakarya Gas Field by 2023. The sector is near where
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
has also found gas reserves.


Trans-sea cooperation


Urban areas


Tourism

In the years following the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, the popularity of the Black Sea as a
tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism ...
destination steadily increased. Tourism at Black Sea resorts became one of the region's growth industries. The following is a list of notable Black Sea resort towns: *
2 Mai 2 Mai (, "May 2") (according to the Socialist Republic of Romania records) or Două Mai (according to the founding decree signed by Mihail Kogălniceanu in 1887) is a village in the Limanu commune, Constanța County, Dobrogea, Romania. It i ...
(Romania) *
Agigea Agigea (; tr, Acıçay, ) is a commune in Constanța County, Northern Dobruja, Romania. The commune includes four villages: Agigea, Lazu (Turkish: ''Laz-Mahale''), Sanatoriul Agigea and Stațiunea Zoologică Marină Agigea, the last two being sp ...
(Romania) * Ahtopol (Bulgaria) * Amasra (Turkey) * Anaklia (Georgia) *
Anapa Anapa (russian: Ана́па, ) is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the northern coast of the Black Sea near the Sea of Azov. Population: History The area around Anapa was settled in antiquity. It was originally a major seaport ...
(Russia) * Albena (Bulgaria) * Alupka (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Alushta (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Balchik (Bulgaria) *
Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's ...
(Georgia) * Burgas (Bulgaria) * Byala (Bulgaria) *
Cap Aurora Cap Aurora is a small Romanian summer-time seaside resort in the Mangalia municipality, Constanța County Constanța () is a county (județ) of Romania on the border with Bulgaria, in the Dobruja region. Its capital city is also named Const ...
(Romania) *
Chakvi Chakvi ( ka, ჩაქვი ), also known as Chakva, is a resort town in Georgia by the Black Sea coast. It is part of Kobuleti Municipality. Economy Chakvi is known throughout Georgia as being the birthplace of tea production in Georgia. Chakvi ...
(Georgia) * Constanța (Romania) * Constantine and Helena (Bulgaria) * Corbu (Romania) *
Costinești Costinești is a commune and resort in Constanța County, Northern Dobruja, Romania, located on the shore of the Black Sea, about south of the county seat, Constanța. It consists of two villages: Costinești and Schitu. Etymology Costinești ...
(Romania) *
Eforie Eforie (; historical names (for Eforie Sud): ''Băile Movilă'', ''Carmen-Sylva'', ''Vasile Roaită'') is a town and a holiday resort on the Black Sea shore, in Constanța County, Northern Dobruja, Romania. It is located about 14 kilometers south ...
(Romania) * Emona (Bulgaria) * Eupatoria (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Feodosiya (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Foros (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Gagra (Abkhazia, Georgia) * Gelendzhik (Russia) * Giresun (Turkey) *
Golden Sands Golden Sands ( Bulgarian: Златни пясъци, ''Zlatni pyasatsi'' ) is a major seaside resort town on the northern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, adjacent to a national park of the same name in the municipality of Varna. Located 17 km n ...
(Bulgaria) *
Gonio Gonio fortress ( ka, გონიოს ციხე, previously called Apsarus or Apsaros ( grc, Ἄψαρος) and Apsyrtus or Apsyrtos (Ἄψυρτος)) is a Roman fortification in Adjara, Georgia, on the Black Sea, 15 km south of Batumi, ...
(Georgia) * Gudauta (Abkhazia, Georgia) and subsequently the Gudauta Bay * Gurzuf (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Hopa (Artvin, Turkey) *
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...
(Romania) * Kamchia (Bulgaria) * Kavarna (Bulgaria) * Kiten (Bulgaria) * Kobuleti (Georgia) *
Koktebel Koktebel ( uk, Коктебéль, russian: Коктебéль, crh, Köktöbel, formerly known as ''Planerskoye'', russian: Планерское) is an urban-type settlement and one of the most popular resort townlets in South-Eastern Crimea. ...
(Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Lozenetz (Bulgaria) * Mamaia (Romania) *
Mangalia Mangalia (, tr, Mankalya), ancient Callatis ( el, Κάλλατις/Καλλατίς; other historical names: Pangalia, Panglicara, Tomisovara), is a city and a port on the coast of the Black Sea in the south-east of Constanța County, Norther ...
(Romania) *
Năvodari Năvodari (, historical names: ''Carachioi''; ''Caracoium'', tr, Kara Koyum) is a town in Constanța County, region of Northern Dobruja, Romania, with a population of 32,400. The town formally includes a territorially distinct community, Social ...
(Romania) * Neptun (Romania) * Nesebar (Bulgaria) * Novorossiysk (Russia) *
Obzor Obzor ( bg, Обзор ) is a small town and seaside resort on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. It is part of Nesebar Municipality, Burgas Province. On February 28th, 2021, the citizens of Obzor and six nearby villages voted in a referendum to sepa ...
(Bulgaria) * Odessa (Ukraine) * Olimp (Romania) * Ordu (Turkey) *
Pitsunda Pitsunda ( ab, Пиҵунда, russian: Пицунда) or Bichvinta ( ka, ბიჭვინთა ) is a resort town in the Gagra District of Abkhazia/Georgia. Founded by Greek colonists in the 5th century BC, Pitsunda became an important politi ...
(Abkhazia, Georgia) * Pomorie (Bulgaria) * Primorsko (Bulgaria) *
Rize Rize ( Greek: ρίζα, Laz: რიზინი, Georgian: რიზე, , Ottoman Turkish: ريزه) is the capital city of Rize Province in the eastern part of the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Rize is a typically Turkish provincial capital wi ...
(Turkey) * Rusalka (Bulgaria) * Samsun (Turkey) * Saturn (Romania) * Şile (Turkey) * Sinop (Turkey) * Skadovsk (Ukraine) * Sochi (Russia) * Sozopol (Bulgaria) * Sudak (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Sulina (Romania) * Sunny Beach (Bulgaria) * Sveti Vlas (Bulgaria) * Trabzon (Turkey) *
Tsikhisdziri Tsikhisdziri ( ka, ციხისძირი) is a village in the Kobuleti Municipality, Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Georgia (country), Georgia, on the Black Sea coast, 8 km south of the town of Kobuleti. Tsikhisdziri is home to an archa ...
(Georgia) * Tuapse (Russia) * Ureki (Georgia) * Vama Veche (Romania) * Varna (Bulgaria) * Venus (Romania) * Yalta (Crimea, Ukraine/Russia (disputed)) * Zonguldak (Turkey)


Modern military use

The 1936 Montreux Convention provides for free passage of civilian ships between the international waters of the Black and the Mediterranean seas. However, a single country (Turkey) has complete control over the straits connecting the two seas. Military ships are categorised separately from civilian vessels and can pass through the straits only if the ship belongs to a Black Sea country. Other military ships have the right to pass through the straits if they are not in a war against Turkey and if they stay in the Black Sea basin for a limited time. The 1982 amendments to the Montreux Convention allow Turkey to close the straits at its discretion in both war and peacetime. The Montreux Convention governs the passage of vessels between the Black, the Mediterranean and Aegean seas and the presence of military vessels belonging to non- littoral states in the Black Sea waters. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has its official primary headquarters and facilities in the city of Sevastopol ( Sevastopol Naval Base). The Soviet hospital ship was sunk on 7 November 1941 by German aircraft while evacuating civilians and wounded soldiers from
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...
. It has been estimated that approximately 5,000 to 7,000 people were killed during the sinking, making it one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history. There were only 8 survivors. In December 2018, the
Kerch Strait incident The Kerch Strait incident was an international incident that occurred on 25 November 2018 in the Kerch Strait, during which the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) coast guard fired upon and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels after they ...
occurred, in which the Russian navy and coast guard took control of three Ukrainian vessels as the ships were trying to enter the Black Sea. In April 2022, during the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...
, the Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk in the western Black Sea by sea-skimming Neptune missiles of the Ukrainian armed forces while the Russians claimed that an onboard fire had caused munitions to explode and damage the ship extensively. She was the largest ship to be lost in naval combat in Europe since World War II.


See also

* Sea of Azov * Kerch Strait *
Regions of Europe Europe, the westernmost portion of Eurasia—is often divided into regions and subregions based on geographical, cultural or historical factors. Since there is no universal agreement on Europe's regional composition, the placement of individua ...
* 1927 Crimean earthquakes


Notes and references


Informational notes


Citations


General bibliography

* * Stella Ghervas, "Odessa et les confins de l'Europe: un éclairage historique", in Stella Ghervas et François Rosset (ed), ''Lieux d'Europe. Mythes et limites'' (Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2008), pp. 107–124. * Charles King, ''The Black Sea: A History'', 2004, * William Ryan and Walter Pitman, ''Noah's Flood'', 1999, * Neal Ascherson, ''Black Sea'' (Vintage 1996), * * Rüdiger Schmitt, "Considerations on the Name of the Black Sea", in: ''Hellas und der griechische Osten'' (Saarbrücken 1996), pp. 219–224 * * * Dimitrov, D. 2010.
Geology and Non-traditional resources of the Black Sea
''. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. . 244p.


External links


Space Monitoring of the Black Sea Coastline and Waters


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20131110111415/http://www.grid.unep.ch/bsein/ Black Sea Environmental Internet Node
Black Sea-Mediterranean Corridor during the last 30 ky: UNESCO IGCP 521 WG12
{{Authority control Seas of the Mediterranean Sea Anoxic waters Back-arc basins European seas Seas of Russia Seas of Turkey Seas of Ukraine Bodies of water of Bulgaria Bodies of water of Georgia (country) Bodies of water of Romania Bodies of water of Crimea Bulgaria–Romania border Bulgaria–Turkey border Georgia (country)–Russia border Georgia (country)–Turkey border Romania–Ukraine border Russia–Ukraine border Seas of the Atlantic Ocean Seas of Asia Geography of Southern Europe Geography of Eastern Europe Geography of Western Asia