Seas, oceans, and coastal waters

Dutch Harbor

Dutch Harbor, on Amaknak Island at Unalaska, Alaska, is the leading U.S. fishing port by volume for over 25 years and the site of the June 1942 Japanese bombing.

Dutch India: VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) trading settlements in India, 1602-1824, centered on Coromandel Coast forts at Pulicat and Nagapattinam, trading textiles for spices, ending with the 1824 Anglo-Dutch treaty.

East China Sea

East China Sea: western Pacific marginal sea bounded by China, Taiwan, the Ryukyus, Kyushu, and Korea; 0.77 million km², Kuroshio transport 19–24 Sv, major fisheries, and 35% of global petroleum shipments (2023).

East Coast of the United States

The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, is the Atlantic-facing coast from Maine to Florida with a continental climate.

East Indies

The East Indies, also known as the Indies, is a European term once covering India, Further India, and the Malay Archipelago, distinguished from the West Indies.

East Korea Bay

East Korea Bay is a bay on North Korea's eastern coast, opening onto the East Sea (Sea of Japan), distinct from Korea Bay on the Yellow Sea side; labeled on U.S. military and NOAA maps and an SST anomaly hot spot.

Oct 15, 2026

East Pacific Rise

The East Pacific Rise is a fast-spreading mid-ocean ridge on the eastern Pacific floor where new oceanic crust forms as the Pacific plate separates from the Cocos and Nazca plates.

East River

The East River is a 16-mile (26 km) tidal strait in New York City connecting Upper New York Bay to Long Island Sound, separating Manhattan and the Bronx from Brooklyn and Queens, crossed by eight bridges including the Brooklyn Bridge.

East Siberian Sea

East Siberian Sea (Восточно-Сибирское море), a shallow Arctic Ocean marginal sea between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island; 913,000 km², mean depth 54 m, most ice-bound Russian Arctic sea, nearly 80% of world subsea permafrost.

Eastern Mediterranean

The Eastern Mediterranean is the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, covering the Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean, and Levantine Seas. A Tethys relict bordered by ten states, it has anti-estuarine circulation, giant offshore gas fields, and heavy Lessepsian invasions.

Eclipse Sound

Eclipse Sound (Détroit d'Eclipse) is a channel in Nunavut, Canada, between northern Baffin Island and Bylot Island, a narwhal summering area and shipping route for the Mary River mine.

Endurance (1912 ship)

Endurance (1912 ship), originally Polaris, was Shackleton's three-masted barquentine, crushed by Weddell Sea pack ice in 1915; its intact wreck was found in 2022 at 3,008 m and is protected as Antarctic HSM No. 93.

English Channel

The English Channel (La Manche) is the 560 km arm of the Atlantic between England and France, ending at the Strait of Dover; a megaflood-carved, heavily trafficked waterway with the 50 km Channel Tunnel and 153 marine protected areas.

English Strait

English Strait (Estrecho Inglés) is a 17 km long, 2 km wide strait between Greenwich and Robert Islands in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, named since at least 1822.

Environmental issues of the Black Sea

The environmental issues of the Black Sea center on its anoxic, hydrogen sulfide deep waters, plus overfishing, eutrophication, the Mnemiopsis invasion, and war damage since 2022.

Erebus and Terror Gulf

Erebus and Terror Gulf is a gulf of the Weddell Sea at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, named after Ross's ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

Erebus Fracture Zone

Erebus Fracture Zone, a Southern Ocean seafloor fracture zone in the GEBCO gazetteer, named for HMS Erebus of the Ross Expedition; proposed by Steven C. Cande in 1995, depths 3,400 to 4,000 m.

Errera Channel

Errera Channel (Chenal d'Errera) is a 9 km Antarctic channel between Rongé Island and the Danco Coast of Graham Land at 64°43'S, 62°36'W, charted by de Gerlache's 1897-99 Belgian expedition and named for Leo Errera.

Estuaries of New Zealand

New Zealand's estuaries are partly enclosed coastal waters where rivers meet the sea; about 301 exist, formed about 6,500 years ago, with Kaipara Harbour the largest.

Estuaries of South Africa

The estuaries of South Africa are about 290 river-mouth systems, mostly small and intermittently closed by sandbars; Lake St Lucia alone holds over half the country's estuarine area.

Estuary

Estuary: a semi-enclosed coastal water body, also called a ria or drowned river valley, where seawater is measurably diluted by fresh river water; brackish nurseries of the sea supporting most U.S. fish catches.

Estuary of the St. Lawrence

The Estuary of the St. Lawrence is the 400-km brackish section of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, running from Île d'Orléans near Quebec City to Pointe-des-Monts.

Euripus Strait

Euripus Strait (Euripos), at Chalkida, Greece, separates Euboea from the mainland; 40 m wide, 8.5 m deep, with strong reversing semi-diurnal tidal currents reaching about 2.5 m/s, studied since Aristotle and assessed for tidal energy.

European colonization of the Americas

European colonization of the Americas: the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch settlement of the Western Hemisphere from Columbus's 1492 voyages, covering encomienda, demographic collapse, and colonial models.

Exasperation Inlet

Exasperation Inlet is a large ice-filled inlet, 16 miles wide, on the Oscar II Coast of Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula, between Foyn Point and Cape Disappointment; named by FIDS in 1947-1949 after disturbed shelf ice hampered sledging.

Exploration of North America

Exploration of North America: European voyages from the Norse landings at L'Anse aux Meadows (Vinland, AD 1021) through Columbus, Spanish and French expeditions, colonial settlement, and the Lewis and Clark crossing.

Eyre Peninsula

Eyre Peninsula, South Australia's largest peninsula (about 70,000 km² west of Adelaide), is a major agriculture and seafood region centred on Port Lincoln, producing all of Australia's farmed southern bluefin tuna and most of the state's oysters, mussels, and abalone.

Falkland Plateau

Falkland Plateau: submarine plateau in the southern South Atlantic extending east from the Falkland Islands, bounded by the Agulhas-Falkland Fracture Zone and North Scotia Ridge; continental at both ends with thick oceanic crust in its basin.

Fallières Coast

The Fallières Coast, also called Fallières Land, is part of Graham Land's western shoreline on the Antarctic Peninsula, stretching from Bourgeois Fjord to Cape Jeremy and fronting Marguerite Bay.