*** Welcome to piglix ***

Sea of Okhotsk

Sea of Okhotsk
Sea of Okhotsk map.png
Map of the Sea of Okhotsk
Location Pacific Ocean
Coordinates 55°N 150°E / 55°N 150°E / 55; 150Coordinates: 55°N 150°E / 55°N 150°E / 55; 150
Type Sea
Basin countries Japan, Russia
Surface area 1,583,000 km2 (611,200 sq mi)
Average depth 859 m (2,818 ft)
Max. depth 3,372 m (11,063 ft)

The Sea of Okhotsk (Russian: Охо́тское мо́ре, tr. Okhotskoye More; IPA: [ɐˈxotskəɪ ˈmorʲɪ]; Japanese: オホーツク海, translit. Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaido to the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast (the Shantar Sea) along the west and north. The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named after Okhotsk, the first Russian settlement in the Far East.

The Sea of Okhotsk covers an area of 1,583,000 square kilometres (611,000 sq mi), with a mean depth of 859 metres (2,818 ft) and a maximum depth of 3,372 metres (11,063 ft). It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin: on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf and the Gulf of Tartary; on the south, through the La Pérouse Strait.

In winter, navigation on the Sea of Okhotsk becomes difficult, or even impossible, due to the formation of large ice floes, because the large amount of freshwater from the Amur River lowers the salinity which results in raising the freezing point of the sea. The distribution and thickness of ice floes depends on many factors: the location, the time of year, water currents, and the sea temperatures.


...
Wikipedia

...