Bering Strait – a strait between Asia and North America, connecting the Arctic Ocean (the Chukchi Sea) and the Pacific Ocean (the Bering Sea). It is 96 km long, 35–86 km wide, and up to 60 m deep. The Diomede Islands (the Gvozdev Islands) divide it into three water ways. The strait brings warmer surface water of the Bering Sea to the north and cold waters of the Arctic Ocean to the south, to the western coastal zone. B.S. is covered with drift ice in the period from October to August. 65 km away from the coast of Alaska, there is King Island, also known as Ugiuvak. The coast of the B.S. is home to one of the extreme points of Russia, Cape Dezhnev (66°05′ N and 169°40′W).
In the middle of the strait, between Big Diomede Island and Little Diomede Island, there lies the state border of the Russian Federation and the USA, set in 1867, as well as the date line. The Northern Sea Route runs through the B.S.
The B.S. was first passed by a Cossack S.I. Dezhnev and F.A. Alekseev (Popov) during...
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(2016). Bering Strait. In: Zonn, I.S., Kostianoy, A.G., Semenov, A.V. (eds) The Eastern Arctic Seas Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Seas. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24237-8_72
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24237-8_72
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