Context: Ukraine said its sea drones struck a major Russian port Friday and damaged a warship in an attack that underlined Kyiv’s growing capabilities as the Black Sea becomes an increasingly important battleground in the war.
Where is Black Sea Located?
- It is a large inland sea situated at the south-eastern extremity of Europe.
- It is bordered by Ukraine to the north, Russia to the northeast, Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west.
- It is connected to the distant waters of the Atlantic Ocean by the Bosporus (which emerges from the sea’s southwestern corner), the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles, the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.
- The Crimean Peninsula thrusts into the Black Sea from the north, and just to its east the narrow Kerch Strait links the sea to the smaller Sea of Azov.
- Several large rivers flow into the Black Sea, such as the Danube, the Dnieper, the Dniester, the Southern Bug, the Russian Don and the Kuban rivers, Western Georgia’s Rioni river, and the Turkish Kızılırmak and Sakarya rivers.
- The Black Sea is connected to the North Sea via the Danube and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal.
How Black Sea was formed?
- Large-scale movements of the Earth’s crust uplifted the mountain ranges that divided the ancient Tethys Ocean into several water basins, such as the Paratethys Ocean. The megalake of the late Miocene was probably the largest lake in Earth’s history and extended from the region east of the Alps across Central Europe to Central Asia. Its remnants include the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea.
- During the last great ice age, which ended about 25,000 years ago, the Black Sea was a large freshwater lake. The Bosphorus, the connection to the Mediterranean Sea – and to saline water – was presumably formed about 6,500 to 7,500 years ago.
The Black Sea has experienced the worst environmental degradation of all of the world’s oceans. The situation has become so severe that it has affected the health, well-being, and standard of living of the people in the immediate area
