877 articles
Bahama Basin
Bahama Basin: undersea basin of the North Atlantic at 29°15'N, 74°15'W, east of Bahama Ridge, named 1992 (SCUFN, proposer Troy L. Holcombe); part of the Blake-Bahama Basin deep beside the Bahama carbonate banks.
Bahía de Samborombón
Bahía de Samborombón (Samborombón Bay), a 243,965-ha Ramsar wetland on the Río de la Plata estuary, Buenos Aires, Argentina, designated 1997; refuge of the endangered Pampas deer and migratory shorebirds.
Bahía Grande
Bahía Grande ("Big Bay") names several places: a 272-km bay of the Argentine Sea in Santa Cruz Province, Patagonia; a restored tidal basin at the southern tip of Texas; bays in Chile and Oaxaca; a Lago Fagnano sub-basin; and an Argentine shipping company.
Baía de São Marcos
Baía de São Marcos (São Marcos Bay) is a macrotidal estuarine complex in Maranhão, Brazil, part of the Golfão Maranhense near São Luís, with semidiurnal tides over 7 m, currents to 3 m/s, and a major iron-ore port complex.
Bali Sea
Bali Sea: IHO-delimited sea (1953 S-23, MRGID 4340) of the Pacific Ocean north of Bali Island, Indonesia; 39,916 km², over the Bali Basin deepening from 200 m to 1,300 m toward Lombok Strait; Sunda Arc tectonics, sardine fisheries.
Bali Strait
Bali Strait (Selat Bali): 80-km strait between Java and Bali linking the Indian Ocean and Java Sea; funnel-shaped, mixed tides, strong currents, Ketapang–Gilimanuk ferry crossing, fisheries, and tidal-energy potential.
Baltic Ice Lake
Baltic Ice Lake, a large ice-dammed freshwater lake filling the Baltic basin during the last deglaciation, drained catastrophically about 25 m through central Sweden before the Yoldia Sea formed.
Baltic Sea (Балтийское море)
Baltic Sea (Балтийское море): shallow, semi-enclosed brackish sea in northern Europe, 420,000 km², max depth 459 m, salinity 0–18 psu, slow 30-year water exchange, severe eutrophication and hypoxia.
Banda Sea
The Banda Sea is a large, deep tropical sea in eastern Indonesia, lying within the Banda Arc and covering about 470,000 square kilometers, with depths near 7,500 m.
Banda Sea Plate
The Banda Sea Plate is a small oceanic microplate beneath the Banda Sea in eastern Indonesia, ringed by a 2,200 km subduction zone and shaken by deep earthquakes.
Barclay Bay
Barclay Bay, also recorded as Barclay's Bay (variant not adopted), is a bay between Cape Shirreff and Start Point on the north side of Livingston Island, Antarctica, at 62°33′S 060°58′W.
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea, named for navigator Willem Barentsz, is a 1.6-million-km2 Arctic shelf sea north of Norway and Russia, averaging 230 m deep, warmed by Atlantic inflow, highly productive, and jointly fished and managed by Norway and Russia.
Barilari Bay
Barilari Bay (Bahía Barilari) is a glacier-marine fjord on the Graham Coast of the west Antarctic Peninsula at 65°55′S 64°43′W, named for Argentine admiral Atilio Barilari, with five tidewater glaciers and warm deep-water intrusions.
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is the sea passage between Victoria and Tasmania, over 65,000 km2 in area, discovered by George Bass and Matthew Flinders in 1798 and named after Bass; it holds major oil, gas, and offshore wind resources.
Bathurst Inlet
Bathurst Inlet is a large north-south bay in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Canada, opening into Coronation Gulf. Its seasonal communities are Umingmaktok and Bathurst Inlet; basin 7,700 km², depth about 350 m.
Battle of Drøbak Sound
The Battle of Drøbak Sound, fought on 9 April 1940 in the Oslofjord, saw Oscarsborg Fortress sink the German cruiser Blücher, flagship of the force sent to seize Oslo.
Battle of the Barents Sea
The Battle of the Barents Sea was a naval engagement on 31 December 1942 in which British escorts drove off a stronger German force, and all of convoy JW 51B reached Russia.
Bay
Bay: a broad coastal inlet partly enclosed by land, related to bights, gulfs, and sounds. Many large bays such as Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay are estuaries with brackish, tidally mixed water.
Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal: triangular northern arm of the Indian Ocean between India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar; seasonally reversing monsoon currents, strong freshwater barrier layer, low productivity, and the world's deadliest tropical cyclone coast; BIMSTEC's namesake sea.
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay (Golfo de Vizcaya, Golfe de Gascogne) is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean bounded by western France and northern Spain, known for rough seas.
Bay of Fundy
Bay of Fundy: Atlantic bay between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada, famed for the world's largest tides, over 16 m at Minas Basin, driven by near resonance of the bay–Gulf of Maine system with the 12.42-hour M2 tide.
Bay of Kiel
The Bay of Kiel (German: Kieler Bucht; Danish: Kiel Bugt) is a bay in the southwestern Baltic Sea off Germany's Schleswig-Holstein and the Danish islands, linked to Kiel by the Kiel Fjord.
Bay of Kotor (Бока которска)
The Bay of Kotor (Бока которска, Boka) is a winding Adriatic bay in southwestern Montenegro, a ria entering over 20 km inland with four gulfs, Venetian fortifications, the UNESCO-listed Kotor region (1979), and the Port of Kotor cruise hub.
Bay of Mecklenburg
Bay of Mecklenburg (Mecklenburger Bucht), a southwestern Baltic Sea bay off Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the Belt Sea transition zone, with Zechstein salt-floored seabed, Baltic Ice Lake shorelines 20-40 m below sea level, and seasonal oxygen deficiency.
Bay of Pigs
Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos), inlet of the Gulf of Cazones on Cuba's southern coast, Matanzas Province; site of the failed CIA-backed Brigade 2506 exile invasion of April 17, 1961, defeated by Castro's forces in two days; also a diving destination.
Bay of Plenty
Bay of Plenty (Te Moana a Toi): large bight and region on New Zealand's eastern North Island coast, named by Cook in 1769; Tauranga city and port, volcanic islands, dairy and kiwifruit economy.
Bays of Macquarie Island
The bays of Macquarie Island, a sub-Antarctic Australian reserve, include Buckles Bay and Hasselborough Bay at the north end, historic landing points for sealing and penguin-oil industries.
Beagle Channel
The Beagle Channel (Canal Beagle) is a strait at the southern tip of South America, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and separating Tierra del Fuego from islands to the south.
Beagle conflict
Beagle conflict: Argentina-Chile dispute over Picton, Lennox, and Nueva islands in the Beagle Channel; 1977 arbitration favored Chile, Argentina rejected it, 1978 war crisis, papal mediation, settled by 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
Beaufort Gyre
The Beaufort Gyre is a wind-driven anticyclonic circulation in the Arctic Ocean's Canada Basin and its largest freshwater reservoir, storing about 25% of Arctic freshwater; it gained over 6,400 km3 from 2003 to 2018 and is regulated by the ice-ocean governor.