What two oceans meet in Alaska. This is the mixing of the waters of the Gulf of Alaska with the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Such a phenomenon as a visible dividing line between two seas is very rare to see and outline. In the north of Denmark, at Cape Grenen, the inhabitants enjoy the opportunity to contemplate this vision.
The waters of the Baltic and North Seas converge there. Waves connect and, at the same time, repel each other, never mixing.
"Edge of the World" - the local name for this place - is such an unimaginable picture that it takes your breath away.
It seems that mysticism has intervened in nature, or that the seas are in an eternal struggle for their place.
With this amazing fact encountered oceanographer and traveler Jacques Yves Cousteau, exploring open spaces water in Strait of Gibraltar. He discovered the existence of two layers of water that do not mix with each other. They seem to be separated by a film and have clear boundaries between them.
Each of them has its own characteristic temperature, salt composition, animal and vegetable world. Upon discovering this obvious and incredible fact the scientist was extremely surprised.
But the confluence of two seas can look even more distinct if there is a significant difference in salinity between them. The transitional boundary between waters of different salinity is called halocline.
For such a boundary to form, the waters of one of the seas must be about five times saltier than the waters of the other sea.
If such a boundary is horizontal, when the upper layer of water is fresh, and at a depth it is salty, then we will not notice anything on the surface of the sea.
But it is another matter if the halocline is vertical. Near southwest coast Alaska observed the border between the waters gulf of alaska With open waters Pacific Ocean.
In this case, the difference in color between waters of different salinity is clearly visible - the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Alaska differ significantly from each other in composition.
Not such a rare occurrence - a visible border between communicating bodies of water A: two seas, sea and ocean, river and tributary, etc. And yet, it always looks so unusual that you involuntarily wonder: why do their waters not mix?
1. North Sea and Baltic Sea
Meeting point North Sea And Baltic Sea near Skagen, Denmark. Water does not mix due to different densities.
2. Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean
3. Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean
Meeting point caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean in the Antilles.
The meeting point of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean on the island of Eleuthera, Bahamas. On the left is the Caribbean Sea (turquoise water), on the right is the Atlantic Ocean (blue water).
4. The Suriname River and the Atlantic Ocean
The meeting point of the Suriname River and the Atlantic Ocean in South America.
5. Uruguay River and its tributary
The confluence of the Uruguay River and its tributary in the province of Misiones, Argentina. One of them is cleared for the needs of agriculture, the other in the rainy season becomes almost red with clay.
6. Rio Negro and Solimões (section of the Amazon)
7. Mosel and Rhine
The confluence of the Moselle and Rhine rivers in the city of Koblenz, Germany. Rhine - lighter, Moselle - darker.
8. Ilz, Danube and Inn
Confluence three rivers Ilz, Danube and Inn in Passau, Germany. Ilts is a small mountain river (in the 3rd photo in the lower left corner), the Danube is in the middle and the Inn is light in color. The Inn, although wider and fuller than the Danube at the confluence, is considered a tributary.
9. Alaknanda and Bhagirathi
The confluence of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers in Devaprayag, India. Alaknanda is dark, Bhagirathi is light.
10. Irtysh and Ulba
The confluence of the Irtysh and Ulba rivers in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan. The Irtysh is clean, the Ulba is muddy.
11. Jialing and Yangtze
The confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze rivers in Chongqing, China. The Jialing River stretches for 119 km. In the city of Chongqing, it flows into the Yangtze River. clear waters Jialing meets the brown waters of the Yangtze.
12. Irtysh and Om
The confluence of the Irtysh and Om rivers in Omsk, Russia. Irtysh - muddy, Om - transparent.
13. Irtysh and Tobol
The confluence of the Irtysh and Tobol rivers near Tobolsk, Tyumen region, Russia. Irtysh - light, cloudy, Tobol - dark, transparent.
14. Chuya and Katun
The confluence of the Chuya and Katun rivers in the Ongudaysky district of the Altai Republic, Russia. The Chuya water in this place (after confluence with the Chaganuzun River) acquires an unusual cloudy white lead color and seems dense and thick. Katun is clean and turquoise. Combining together, they form a single two-color stream with a clear boundary and flow for some time without mixing.
15. Green and Colorado
The confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers national park Canyonlands, Utah, USA. Green is green and Colorado is brown. The channels of these rivers run through various rocks That's why the colors of the water are so contrasting.
16. Rona and Arv
The confluence of the Rhone and Arves in Geneva, Switzerland. The river on the left is the transparent Rhone, which emerges from Lake Leman. The river on the right is the muddy Arve, which is fed by the many glaciers of the Chamonix valley.
When the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounded the rocky promontory of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa, he became the first European to discover the route from Europe to Asia. It happened in 1488. He called it the "Cape of Storms" because of the dangerous sea, but later it was renamed the "Cape Good Hope"because he gave hope for a new sea route to India. On the way back, Diaz discovered another rocky promontory, but never realized that this unimpressive point was the southern tip of Africa. Indeed, many people still believe that the Cape of Good Hope is the southernmost point of the African continent. In fact, this title belongs to Cape Agulhas - an inconspicuous rocky cape 150 kilometers to the south. Cape Agulhas is also the site of the official dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as stated by the stone plaque.
The border was not chosen arbitrarily. This is the place where the warm current indian ocean meets the cold water of the Atlantic Ocean. However, any physical definition of a meeting point or a dividing line between two oceans ignores the fact that the currents do not stop their flow at this point. Ocean currents pass into each other and simply mix.
The meeting point of two oceans has been the subject of many heated arguments among South Africans. For example, the meeting point of currents tends to fluctuate seasonally between Cape Agulhas and Point Point, about 1.2 kilometers east of the Cape of Good Hope. According to marine biologists, the actual venue can be ascertained by observing differences in marine life caused by changes in temperature along the coast. For example, the fertile algae (Ecklonia) prefers colder water and grows on everything. west coast up to Cape Agulhas. This fact supports the argument that the dividing line between warm and cold waters lies in Agulhas rather than anywhere else.
However, to the chagrin of the people of Cape Agulhas, Cape Point attracts more tourists who want to see the confluence of the oceans. Companies at Cape Point cash in on misinformed tourists. Gift shops in the area sell coffee mugs, T-shirts, spoons and bottles. ocean water, emblazoned with the slogan "Cape Point, South Africa: Where Two Oceans Meet.
This is partly because Cape Agulhas is not as scenic as Cape Point. “Standing at Cape Point feels like you're on the edge of the Grand Canyon,” writes John Murphy in the Baltimore Sun. In addition, whales always gather here, for the sake of which many travelers come.
Why don't the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea meet in the Strait of Gibraltar? Of the 23 groups studied in the Gulf of Alaska, 18 consisted of whales close in size, and only the remaining 5 were of different sizes. The stomach of the sperm whale, like that of all toothed whales, is multi-chambered.
However, even in places where the waters converge the closest, they nevertheless retain their properties, i.e. do not mix. How can they not mix if in both cases the solvent is water? Don't defy the laws of thermodynamics! A photo with a sharp border does not mean anything, even if it is a picture in the strait area, etc., then this is just a fixation of some moment of mixing. This is called a halocline or salinity jump layer - a transitional boundary between waters of different salinity.
Most maps do not show the boundaries of the seas, so it seems that they just smoothly transition into each other and into the oceans. The boundaries of the seas (or the sea and the ocean) are most clearly visible where a vertical halocline appears. A halocline is a strong difference in salinity between two layers of water. Jacques Yves Cousteau discovered the same phenomenon while exploring the Strait of Gibraltar.
For a halocline to arise, one body of water must be five times saltier than another. In this case, physical laws will prevent the waters from mixing. Now imagine a vertical halocline that occurs when two seas collide, in one of which the percentage of salt is five times higher than in the other. This is where you will see the place where the North Sea meets the Baltic.
They also cannot mix immediately, and not only because of the difference in salinity. In other places, water boundaries also exist, but they are smoother and not noticeable to the eye, since the mixing of waters is more intense. White_raccoon: it is at the Cape of Good Hope that the Atlantic and Indian currents meet. A wave that has passed through the entire Atlantic can meet with a wave that has passed through the entire Indian Ocean, but they will not extinguish each other, but will go further and reach Antarctica.
This is the mixing of the waters of the Gulf of Alaska with the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
The sperm whale is a herd animal that lives large groups sometimes reaching hundreds and even thousands of heads. It is distributed throughout the world's oceans, except for the polar regions. In nature, the sperm whale has practically no enemies, only killer whales can occasionally attack females and young.
Descriptions of the sperm whale are found in well-known authors. Linnaeus cited in his work two species of the genus Physeter: catodon and macrocephalus. The weight of the "spermaceti sac" reaches 6 tons and even 11 tons. Behind the head, the body of the sperm whale expands and becomes thick in the middle, almost round in cross section.
The border is delineated by a thin layer of foam.
When exhaling, the sperm whale gives a fountain directed obliquely forward and upward at an angle of about 45 degrees. At this time, the whale lies almost in one place, moving forward only a little, and, being in a horizontal position, rhythmically plunges into the water, launching a fountain. Often there are brown tones in the color (especially noticeable with bright sunlight), there are brown and even almost black sperm whales. In the past, when sperm whales were more numerous, specimens were occasionally found weighing close to 100 tons.
Two harpoons belonging to the crew of the Ann Alexander were found in the carcass of a sperm whale.
The difference in the size of the male and female in the sperm whale is the largest among all cetaceans. The size of the heart of an average sperm whale is a meter in height and width. In the spine of the sperm whale there are 7 cervical vertebrae, 11 thoracic, 8-9 lumbar and 20-24 caudal. It consists of two main parts filled with spermaceti.
Back in the 1970s, studies appeared, according to which the spermaceti organ regulates the buoyancy of the sperm whale when diving and rising from the depths. However, both liquid and solid spermaceti are significantly lighter than water - its density at 30 °C is about 0.857 g/cm³, 0.852 at 37 °C and 0.850 at 40 °C.
Males are found over a wider range than females, and it is adult males (only they) who regularly appear in circumpolar waters. In warm waters, sperm whales are more common than in cold ones. Leay, 1851), living in the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. The whales of this herd stay all year round Pacific coast United States, but the maximum number in these waters reaches from April to mid-November.
Hawaiian. In summer and autumn, this herd stays in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Its range is the Bering Sea, well separated from the main part of the Pacific Ocean by the ridge of the Aleutian Islands, which the sperm whales of this herd rarely cross. Most sperm whales can be found here in autumn in the waters of the New England continental shelf. Sperm whales of the modern type appeared about 10 million years ago and, apparently, have changed little during this time, during which they have remained at the top of the food chain of the oceans.
The colossal pressure of water at depth does not harm the whale, since its body is largely composed of fat and other liquids that are very little compressible by pressure. There are suggestions that the sperm whale uses echolocation not only to search for prey and orientation, but also as a weapon. So, according to Soviet studies, in the stomachs of sperm whales from the waters Kuril Islands(360 stomachs) came across up to 28 species of cephalopods.
But female sperm whales were also very thoroughly knocked out in the years after the Second World War, especially in the waters washing the shores of Chile and Peru.
In the 1980s, it was estimated that sperm whales ate about 12 million tons of cephalopods a year in the waters of the Southern Ocean. A case is described when a sperm whale was caught that swallowed a squid so large that its tentacles did not fit in the belly of the whale, but protruded outward and stuck to the snout of the sperm whale. An adult male sperm whale, with its enormous strength and powerful teeth, has no enemies in nature. There are different estimates of the current number of sperm whales in the oceans.
Marine pollution is an important factor affecting the number of sperm whales in a number of areas of the World Ocean.
Be that as it may, the number of sperm whales so far, especially in comparison with the population of other large whales, remains relatively high. The production of sperm whales was sharply limited in the second half of the 1960s, and in 1985, sperm whales, along with other whales, were completely taken under protection.
According to some estimates, between 184,000 and 230,000 sperm whales were caught in the 19th century, and in modern era about 770,000 (of which most of between 1946 and 1980). All sperm whales were caught in the Northern Hemisphere. Before attacking the ship, the sperm whale managed to break two boats. Fortunately, there were no casualties, as the crew was rescued two days later. In 2004, data were published that from 1975 to 2002 sea vessels encountered large whales 292 times, including sperm whales - 17 times. At the same time, in 13 cases, sperm whales died.
Jacques was impressed by the fact that this place was written in the Koran, 1400 years ago. After that, he was attracted to the religion of Islam. The point here is surface tension: transport?r - what is the meaning of this word, in what language is it written? Here you can see a clear boundary between waters of different salinity.
herd of the north Gulf of Mexico. But, despite the spectacular border of these two seas, their waters are gradually mixed. Cousteau, traveling a lot, discovered a place where the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean touch in the strait, while not mixing with each other.
The Portuguese Bartomeu Dias became the first European who managed to open the way from the Old World to Asia. This happened in 1488, and the journey included many discoveries. So, on the way to India, Diaz met the cape, which we now call the "Cape of Good Hope." On the way back, the navigator met another rocky cape, but could not understand that it was the southernmost tip of the African continent. Because of this, for a long time it was believed that the Cape of Good Hope is the most south point African continent. In fact, this title rightfully belongs to Cape Agulhas, located about 150 kilometers to the south. Moreover, this place is the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans merge. So if you are looking for a place on the map where you can buy a house on the sea, this place is quite suitable.
The border of the confluence of the two oceans was not chosen by chance. The reason for this decision is that it is here warm waters The Indian Ocean meets the cold current of the Atlantic Ocean. It is almost impossible to notice this, since the currents are tritely mixed together and do not have distinctive features.
In general, there is still a lot of various disputes on the topic of the confluence of the oceans. So, some consider Cape Point, located about a kilometer east of the Cape of Good Hope, to be the boundary of two oceans. Marine biologists have refuted this theory based on observations of various flora and fauna. So, the algae Ecklonia loves cold water and grows on the west coast up to Cape Agulhas. This once again confirms the fact that the warm waters of the Indian Ocean begin further, in which the algae no longer feels comfortable, because of which the line of its growth abruptly ends.
But, despite all the evidence, Cape Point still attracts a lot more tourists. This is due to an active advertising campaign and an abundance travel companies working in this region. In particular, people are offered to buy a lot of souvenirs, most of which are decorated with the following slogan - "Cape Point, South Africa: the place where two oceans meet."
Perhaps the reason lies also in the fact that Cape Agulhas is not so beautiful in comparison with Cape Point. And here you can always see whales, for which most tourists prefer Cape Point as end point of your journey.
