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Strait
Strait: a narrow water passage connecting two larger bodies of water, also called a strait or narrows. Formed by tectonics, erosion, or sea-level rise; major straits like Hormuz and Malacca are critical oil and trade chokepoints under UNCLOS transit passage.
Strait of Belle Isle
Strait of Belle Isle: strait between northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador, the Gulf of St. Lawrence's north entrance; about 78 miles long, 9.2 miles wide, ice-free roughly May/June to late December.
Strait of Dover
Strait of Dover (Pas de Calais): 30-km-wide eastern end of the English Channel linking it to the North Sea. Macrotidal, 3–9 m range, first IMO traffic separation scheme (1967), Channel Tunnel, Europe's busiest ferry port.
Strait of Georgia
Strait of Georgia (Georgia Strait), a semi-enclosed sea between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia, part of the Salish Sea; named by Vancouver in 1792 for King George III, fed mainly by the Fraser River.
Strait of Gibraltar (مضيق جبل طارق)
Strait of Gibraltar (مضيق جبل طارق), sea passage between Spain and Morocco connecting Atlantic and Mediterranean. 58–60 km long, 14 km wide at Tarifa; two-layer exchange of ~0.8 Sv each; 110,000–120,000 vessels yearly; planned 38.5 km Spain–Morocco rail tunnel.
Strait of Hormuz (تنگه هرمز)
The Strait of Hormuz (تنگه هرمز) is a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, and the world's leading oil chokepoint.
Strait of Juan de Fuca
Strait of Juan de Fuca: sea passage between Vancouver Island and Washington's Olympic Peninsula, named 1787 by Barkley after the Greek pilot Juan de Fuca; main Pacific gateway to the Salish Sea with estuarine two-layer flow and about 8,300 deep-draft vessel transits yearly.
Strait of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan (Estrecho de Magallanes) is a 350-mile passage at South America's southern tip separating Patagonia from Tierra del Fuego, first transited by Magellan in 1520.
Strait of Malacca
Strait of Malacca, between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, links the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is the world's largest oil chokepoint, carrying 23.2 million b/d, about 29% of seaborne oil, in 1H25.
Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina, also Fiume di Messina, the 3-km-wide passage between Sicily and Calabria linking the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas, known for 3 m/s tidal currents, Scylla and Charybdis, and the planned €13.5 billion suspension bridge.
Strait of Tartary
Strait of Tartary (Tatarskiy Proliv, Mamiya Strait): long strait separating Sakhalin from the Russian mainland, linking the Sea of Okhotsk and Sea of Japan; narrowest part Nevelskoy Strait, 7.5 km wide, 10 m deep, frozen in winter.
Straits of Florida
Straits of Florida: channels between Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas linking the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic; the Florida Current, headwaters of the Gulf Stream, carries about 32 Sv northward through them.
Straits of Mackinac
The Straits of Mackinac are the open-water channel connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, making them hydrologically one lake, the world's largest by surface area; site of the Mackinac Bridge, colonial Michilimackinac, and the disputed Enbridge Line 5 pipeline.
Straits of Tiran (مضيق تيران)
Straits of Tiran (مضيق تيران): narrow strait between Sinai and Tiran Island connecting the Gulf of Aqaba to the Red Sea; sole sea access to Eilat and Aqaba, closed by Egypt in 1967, international waterway under the 1979 Egypt-Israel treaty.
Strand swamp
Strand swamp (also cypress strand) is a Florida natural community: a shallow, elongated, forested wetland channel dominated by bald cypress, with 200-300 day hydroperiod, peat-over-limestone soils, and rare fire, best exemplified by the Fakahatchee Strand.
Strangford Loch
Strangford Lough (Loch Cuan) is Northern Ireland's largest sea lough, about 150 km2 in County Down, a drowned drumlin landscape with 120 islands, rich marine life, and Ramsar, SAC, SPA, and MCZ protections.
Stream
Stream: a body of flowing water in a defined channel, from headwater creeks to rivers (USGS FCode 46000). Covers streamflow, watersheds, sediment, classification systems, and restoration frameworks.
Stream bank
Stream bank: the sloping ground bordering a stream channel, also called streambank. Erodes by fluvial erosion and mass failure, measured as horizontal bank loss (cm/y), and is managed through stabilization practices like jetties and toe protection.
Stream bend
Stream bend (meander bend): a curve in a stream channel where faster outer flow erodes a cut bank while slower inner flow builds a point bar, driving lateral and downstream migration, cutoffs, and oxbow lakes; geometry follows a length-to-radius ratio near 4.7.
Stream mouth
Stream mouth (river mouth): the place where a stream or river discharges into a larger stream, lake, lagoon, reservoir, or the sea; the terminus where alluvium is deposited, forming deltas, mouth bars, and estuaries.
Stuart
Stuart Lake (Nak'al Bun) is a 90 km long lake in north-central British Columbia near Fort St. James, named for fur trader John Stuart, draining via the Stuart River to the Nechako, with threatened sockeye runs and white sturgeon critical habitat.
Suaeda
Suaeda (seepweed, seablite) is a genus of about 94 accepted halophytic herbs and shrubs in Amaranthaceae, subfamily Suaedoideae, published in 1776. It grows in coastal and desert saline soils worldwide, tolerates 200 mM NaCl or more, and is used for food, oil, and saline-land restoration.
Subic Bay
Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippines: deep-water harbor and former largest US overseas naval base, converted by RA 7227 into the 670 km² Subic Bay Freeport Zone run by the SBMA, now a trade, shipbuilding, and logistics hub.
Submarine canyon
Submarine canyons are steep-walled valleys cut into continental slopes by turbidity currents, linking shelves to the deep sea. About 5,849 large canyons are mapped globally; they transport sediment, drive carbon sequestration, and host deep-sea biodiversity hotspots.
Submarine morphology
Submarine morphology: the study of seafloor landforms from continental shelf and slope to abyssal plains, trenches, and seamounts, shaped by tectonics, turbidity currents, and sediment supply, and mapped by sonar and altimetry.
Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole
The Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole (SIOD), also called the Indian Ocean Subtropical Dipole, is a climate variability mode in the southern Indian Ocean identified in 2001.
Sudanic Congo - Oubangi
Sudanic Congo - Oubangi (FEOW ID 535) is an Afrotropic freshwater ecoregion covering the Ubangi basin except the Uele, plus the Congo mainstem to Malebo Pool, with fauna transitional between Nilo-Sudanian and Congolian.
Sudd
The Sudd is Africa's largest wetland, a White Nile floodplain swamp in South Sudan covering about 57,000 km2, a 2006 Ramsar site famed for shoebill and antelope migrations and threatened by the unfinished Jonglei Canal.
Sulphur spring
Sulphur spring (sulfur spring): a spring whose water contains natural sulfur compounds, usually hydrogen sulfide with a rotten-egg odor; volcanic or petroleum-derived, acid-sulfate chemistry, mineral deposits, and historical balneotherapy use.
Sulu Sea
The Sulu Sea is a small, deep marginal sea of the western Pacific, lying between the Philippine islands of Palawan, Panay, Negros, and Mindanao and northeastern Borneo.