1.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
2.
Campeche
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Campeche, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche, is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It has a coastline to the west with the Gulf of Mexico, the state capital, also called Campeche, was declared a World Heritage Site in 1997. The formation of the state began with the city, which was founded in 1540 as the Spanish began the conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula, during the colonial period, the city was a rich and important port, but declined after Mexico’s Independence. Campeche was part of the province of Yucatán but split off in the mid-19th century, today, much of the state’s economic comeback is due to the finding of petroleum offshore in the 1970s, which has made the coastal cities of Campeche and Ciudad del Carmen important economic centers. The state has important Mayan and colonial sites but they are not as well known or visited as others in the Yucatán. The states executive power rests in the governor of Campeche and the legislative power rests in the Congress of Campeche which is a legislature composed of 35 deputies. The state of Campeche is located in southeast Mexico, on the west side of the Yucatan Peninsula, the territory is 56,858. 84km2, which is 2. 6% of Mexico’s total. It borders the states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Tabasco, with the country of Belize to the east, Guatemala to the south and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. Politically, it is divided into municipalities, Calkiní, Calakmul, Campeche, Candelaria, Champotón, Ciudad del Carmen, Escárcega, Hecelchakán, Hopelchén, Palizada. Campeche is a flat area of Mexico with 523 km of shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the surface is of sedimentary rock much of which is from marine origin, the area with the highest elevations is near the borders with Guatemala and Quintana Roo. Notable elevations include Cerro Champerico, Cerro los Chinos, Cerro El Ramonal, Cerro El Doce, however, these hills are separated by large expanses of lower flat land. In the south of the municipality of Champotón begin a series of rolling hills known as the Sierra Alta or Puuc and these have only an average altitude of between forty and sixty meters with some reaching 100 meters. There other areas of rolling hills, near the city of Campeche with main ones known as Maxtum, Boxol. Another set is called the Sierra Seybaplaya in the center of the state, away from the coast, these rainforests are interspersed with savannah areas and along the coast are accompanied by areas with sand dunes, mangrove wetlands and estuaries. Species that can be found in the various rainforests include huapaque, cedar, pukte, sapote, dyewood, dzalam and it also includes a number of precious tropical hardwoods such as red cedar, mahogany, ciricote and guayacán. Along the coastal areas, palms such as the coconut. The main wildlife species in the state are the jaguar, ocelot, puma, deer, wild boar, raccoon, hare, ring-tailed cat, there are many bird species including the chachalaca, ducks, quail, pelican, toucan, buzzard and many more
3.
Tabasco
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Tabasco, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco, is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa and it is located in the southeast of the country bordering the states of Campeche to the northeast, Veracruz to the west and Chiapas to the south, and the Petén department of Guatemala to the southeast. It has a coastline to the north with the Gulf of Mexico, most of the state is covered in rainforest as, unlike most other areas of Mexico, it has plentiful rainfall year round. For this reason, it is covered in small lakes, wetlands. The state is subject to flooding events, with the last occurring in 2007. The state is home to La Venta, the major site of the Olmec civilization. Even though it produces significant quantities of petroleum and natural gas, the state is located in the southeast of Mexico, bordering the states of Campeche, Chiapas and Veracruz with the Gulf of Mexico to the north and the country of Guatemala to the south and east. The state covers 24,731 square kilometres, which is 1. 3% of Mexicos total, the northwestern portion is on the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico with the south and east as part of the mountain chain that extends into northern Chiapas. It is divided into seventeen municipalities, there are 36 communities designated as urban with about 3,000 smaller towns and villages. 185 are classified as regional development centers, in 1994, the state was officially divided into two regions, five sub regions for socioeconomic development and geographic documentation. The two major regions are called the Grijalva and the Usumacinta, the Grijalva Region is named after the river on which most of the municipalities here are dependent. The Usumacinta Region is named after the river on which the Centla, Jonuta, Emiliano Zapata, Balancán. It is divided into the Pantanos and Ríos subregions, which are more rural than the Grijalva Region. The environment of the consists of extensive low lying floodplains, mountains. Most of the territory is covered with tropical rainforest and wetlands, there are also areas with savanna, beaches and mangrove forests. Much of the rainforest has suffered due to over logging. The east is formed by low humid plains formed by sediment deposited by a number of rivers, in the Chontalpa zone and in parts of the municipalities of Cental and Jonuta, there are swampy depressions extremely vulnerable to flooding from both river flow and from excessive rainfall. In the south there are some elevations which are part of the central mesa of Chiapas, the most important of these is El Madrigal, La Campana, La Corona, Pomaná, Coconá, Mono Pelado and El Tortuguero
4.
Veracruz
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It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is Xalapa-Enríquez. This state is located in Eastern Mexico and it is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north, San Luis Potosí and Hidalgo to the west, Puebla to the southwest, Oaxaca and Chiapas to the south, and Tabasco to the southeast. On its east, Veracruz has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, the state is noted for its mixed ethnic and indigenous populations. Its cuisine reflects the cultural influences that have come through the state because of the importance of the port of Veracruz. In addition to the city, the states largest cities include Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Córdoba, Minatitlán, Poza Rica, Boca Del Río. The full name of the state is Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, Veracruz was named after the city of Veracruz, which was originally called the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. The suffix is in honor of Ignacio de la Llave y Segura Zevallos, the state’s seal was authorized by the state legislature in 1954, adapting the one used for the port of Veracruz and created by the Spanish in the early 16th century. The state is a strip of land wedged between the Sierra Madre Oriental to the west and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. Its total area is 78,815 km2, accounting for about 3. 7% of Mexico’s total territory and it stretches about 650 km north to south, but its width varies from between 212 km to 36 km, with an average of about 100 km in width. Veracruz shares common borders with the states of Tamaulipas, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Tabasco, and Puebla, Hidalgo, Veracruz has 690 km of coastline with the Gulf of Mexico. The topography changes drastically, rising from the coastal plains to the highlands of the eastern Sierra Madre. Elevation varies from sea level to the Pico de Orizaba, Mexico’s highest peak at 5,636 m above sea level, the coast consists of low sandy strips interspersed with tidewater streams and lagoons. Most of the coastline is narrow and sandy with unstable dunes, small shifting lagoons. The mountains are of the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, major peaks include Pico de Orizaba, Cofre de Perote, Cerro de Tecomates, Cerro del Vigía Alta and Cerro de 3 Tortas. The Pico de Orizaba is covered in snow year round, the Cofre de Perote is covered in winter, major valleys include the Acultzingo, Córdoba, Maltrata, Orizaba and San Andrés. All of the rivers and streams cross the state begin in the Sierra Madre Oriental or in the Central Mesa. The largest in terms of discharge are the Pánuco, Tuxpan, Papaloapan, Coazocoalcos. The Panuco, Tuxpan, Papaloapan and Coatzacoalcos are navigable, two of Mexicos most polluted rivers, the Coatzacoalcos and the Río Blanco are located in the state
5.
Cantarell Field
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Cantarell Field or Cantarell Complex is an aging supergiant oil field in Mexico. It was discovered in 1976 after oil stains were noticed by a fisherman, Rudesindo Cantarell Jimenez and it was placed on nitrogen injection in 2000, and production peaked at 2.1 million barrels per day in 2003. In terms of production to date, it is by far the largest oil field in Mexico. However, production has declined since 2003, falling to 408,000 barrels per day in April 2012, Cantarell is located 80 kilometres offshore in the Bay of Campeche. This complex comprises four major fields, Akal, Nohoch, Chac, the reservoirs are formed from carbonate breccia of Late Cretaceous age, the rubble from the asteroid impact that created the Chicxulub Crater. Cantarells oil production peaked in 2004 and has declined in subsequent years, following impact, the carbonate platform collapsed, depositing the coarse breccias, which were then overlain mixed and overlain by finer breccias from the consequent tsunamis. Folding occurred in the early Miocene to Pliocene and the compression forced up Cretaceous, there are four blocks in the Cantarell Complex, Akal, Nohoch, Chac and Kutz with the Akal block underlain by a fifth block, Sihil, where oil was discovered in 1998. By 1981 the Cantarell complex was producing 1.16 million barrels per day, however, the production rate dropped to 1 million barrels per day in 1995. However, Cantarell had much smaller oil reserves than Ghawar, so began to decline rapidly in the second half of the decade. In March 2006 it was reported that Cantarell had already peaked, for 2006, the fields output declined by 13. 1%, according to Jesús Reyes Heróles, the director-general of PEMEX. In July 2008, the production rate fell sharply by 36% to 973,668 barrels per day from 1.526 million barrels per day a year earlier. Analysts theorize that this decline is a result of production enhancement techniques causing faster short-term oil extraction at the expense of field longevity. In 2008, Pemex expected Cantarells decline to continue to 2012, by September 2009 this figure was already achieved, marking one of the most dramatic declines ever seen in the oil industry. Production is now expected to stabilize at 400,000 barrels per day, however the production had fallen to 408,000 barrels per day by April 2012. The shortfall is having an effect on Mexicos annual government budget. Production continued to decline and production was at 340,000 barrels per day in June 2014, Pemex will spend 6 billion US dollars until 2017 to stop the decline and maintain production level at around 325,000 barrels per day for another decade. Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex is expected to produce 0.8 million barrels per day by the end of decade, in 2009, Ku-Maloob-Zaap replaced Cantarell as Mexicos most productive oil field. List of oil fields Petroleum industry in Mexico Peak Oil is Now Official by Trey Shaughnessy,18 March 2006, Mexico Oil Production going down January 2007 Cantarell main data Rigzone Article on Decline Cantarell is Dying
6.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
7.
Campeche City
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The citys population at the 2010 census was 220,389, and the municipality for which it serves as municipal seat had a population of 259,005. The city was founded in 1540 by Spanish conquistadores as San Francisco de Campeche atop the pre-existing Maya city of Can Pech, the Pre-Columbian city was described as having 3,000 houses and various monuments, of which little trace remains. The city retains many of the old colonial Spanish city walls and fortifications protected the city from pirates. The state of preservation and quality of its architecture earned it the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, originally, the Spaniards lived inside the walled city, while the natives lived in the surrounding barrios of San Francisco, Guadalupe and San Román. These barrios still retain their original churches, the one in Guadalupe is almost 500 years old, founded in 1540 by Francisco Montejo, Campeche was terrorized by pirates and marauders until the city started fortification in 1686. San Francisco de Campeche was originally a village, Ah Kim Pech. The city of Campeche was founded in 1540 and fortified against pirates during the 17th century and it still has the appearance of a fortress. Historical monuments and buildings, such as the Franciscan cathedral, old Maya ruins, the state of preservation and quality of its architecture earned it the status of a World Heritage Site in 1999. More than one thousand buildings with a historic value have survived as witnesses of space, the French engineer Louis Bouchard de Becour was commissioned to unify all the defensive works that surrounded the city with a wall. At its completion, the surrounding the city of Campeche was 2,560 meters in length, forming an irregular hexagon around the main part of the city. These bulwarks now serve different functions, Santiago, Used as the Botanical Garden Xmuch´haltún, San Francisco, Protects the Land Gate. Houses the library of the INAH, San Juan, Protects the Land Gate. Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Also protects the Sea Gate and it is the largest one and holds the Museum of City History. San Carlos, Holds the City Museum and this fort was the first one built. It also contained four gates to access to the main quarters. The main entrances are the Puerta de la tierra, built in 1732, the Land Gate is kept as a tourist attraction, having a light and sound show three nights each week and keeping original supplies and items from the 17th century. The other gates were Guadalupe and San Román, connecting to the outside neighborhoods, additionally, two main forts protected the city from two nearby hills on each side, the forts of San José el Alto and San Miguel. These forts gave long-range artillery coverage and served also as look-outs and they were built before the walls of the city
8.
Ciudad del Carmen
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Isla del Carmen and Carmen Island redirect here. For the island in Baja California, see Isla del Carmen, Ciudad del Carmen is a city in the southwest of the Mexican state of Campeche. Ciudad del Carmen is located at 18. 63°N91. 83°W /18.63, -91.83 on the southwest of Carmen Island, as of 2010, Ciudad del Carmen had a population of 169,466, up from the 2005 census of 154,197. In July 2006 Ciudad del Carmen celebrated its 150th anniversary as a city, the city is nicknamed The Pearl of the Gulf. Ciudad del Carmen was a city mostly devoted to fishing until the 1970s when oil was discovered in the region, since then it has grown. To this day Carmen is known as one of the best locations to find seafood in Mexico, the construction of the first bridge was motivated by the sinking of one of the islands pangas which resulted in the death of nearly everyone on board. The bridge Puente El Zacatal, constructed in 1994, is one of the longest in Latin America. This border area at the edge of the Yucatán Peninsula was previously part of the state of Yucatán, then of Tabasco. In 1840 the city had a population of about 7,000, the city is also the seat of the state of Campeches Carmen municipality, which includes the city and the surrounding area. The 2010 census population of the municipality of Carmen was 221,094 people, the main university in Ciudad del Carmen is the Universidad Autónoma del Carmen. Founded in the era, Ciudad del Carmen was an important location which served to connect the Aztec. Ciudad del Carmen is located on an island covering an area of 11,513 hectares, the island is mainly 2 to 3 metres above sea level. Ciudad del Carmen is the head of Carmen municipality, like most of the cities along the Yucatans gulf coast, Ciudad del Carmen exhibits a Tropical savanna climate. The city, situated on Carmen Island, has a dry season that lasts from January through May. September and October bring copious rainfall, with both months averaging well over 200 milimeters, the vast majority of habitants in Ciudad del Carmen comes from other places. In the mid 1970s Ciudad del Carmen was transformed from a fishing and shrimping city into a hub for oil when Pemex discovered large amounts of petroleum off the coast. Ever since, Carmen has become a home for Mexican and foreign oil workers alike, including many Texans, and now houses many foreign companies
9.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
10.
Ocean
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An ocean is a body of saline water that composes much of a planets hydrosphere. On Earth, an ocean is one of the major divisions of the World Ocean. These are, in descending order by area, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, the word sea is often used interchangeably with ocean in American English but, strictly speaking, a sea is a body of saline water partly or fully enclosed by land. The ocean contains 97% of Earths water, and oceanographers have stated that less than 5% of the World Ocean has been explored, the total volume is approximately 1.35 billion cubic kilometers with an average depth of nearly 3,700 meters. As the world ocean is the component of Earths hydrosphere, it is integral to all known life, forms part of the carbon cycle. The world ocean is the habitat of 230,000 known species, but because much of it is unexplored, the origin of Earths oceans remains unknown, oceans are thought to have formed in the Hadean period and may have been the impetus for the emergence of life. Extraterrestrial oceans may be composed of water or other elements and compounds, the only confirmed large stable bodies of extraterrestrial surface liquids are the lakes of Titan, although there is evidence for the existence of oceans elsewhere in the Solar System. Early in their histories, Mars and Venus are theorized to have had large water oceans. The Mars ocean hypothesis suggests that nearly a third of the surface of Mars was once covered by water, compounds such as salts and ammonia dissolved in water lower its freezing point so that water might exist in large quantities in extraterrestrial environments as brine or convecting ice. Unconfirmed oceans are speculated beneath the surface of many planets and natural satellites, notably. The Solar Systems giant planets are thought to have liquid atmospheric layers of yet to be confirmed compositions. Oceans may also exist on exoplanets and exomoons, including surface oceans of water within a circumstellar habitable zone. Ocean planets are a type of planet with a surface completely covered with liquid. The concept of Ōkeanós has an Indo-European connection, Greek Ōkeanós has been compared to the Vedic epithet ā-śáyāna-, predicated of the dragon Vṛtra-, who captured the cows/rivers. Related to this notion, the Okeanos is represented with a dragon-tail on some early Greek vases, though generally described as several separate oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water sometimes referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean. This concept of a body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography. The major oceanic divisions – listed below in descending order of area and volume – are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, Oceans are fringed by smaller, adjoining bodies of water such as seas, gulfs, bays, bights, and straits. The Mid-Oceanic Ridge of the World are connected and form the Ocean Ridge, the continuous mountain range is 65,000 km long, and the total length of the oceanic ridge system is 80,000 km long
11.
Beaufort Sea
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The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, west of Canadas Arctic islands. The sea is named after hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort, the major Mackenzie River empties into the Canadian part of the sea, west of Tuktoyaktuk, which is one of the few permanent settlements on the sea shores. The sea, characterized by climate, is frozen over most of the year. Historically, only a narrow pass up to 100 km opened in August–September near its shores, claims that the seacoast was populated about 30,000 years ago have been largely discredited, present population density is very low. The sea contains significant resources of petroleum and natural gas under its shelf and they were discovered in the period between the 1950s and 1980s, and their exploration became the major human activity in the area since the 1980s. The traditional occupations of fishery and whale and seal hunting are practiced only locally, as a result, the sea hosts one of the largest colonies of beluga whales, and there is no sign of overfishing. To prevent overfishing in its waters, the US adopted precautionary commercial fisheries management plan in August 2009, in April 2011 the Canadian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Inuvialuit as a first step in developing a larger ocean management plan. The Canadian government has set a new block of the Beaufort Sea off the Parry Peninsula in the Amundsen as a Marine Protected Area, the protected area is set to protect species and habits for the Inuvialuit community. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Beaufort Sea as follows, a line from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Lands End, Prince Patrick Island. There is a dispute involving a wedge-shaped slice on the International Boundary in the Beaufort Sea. Canada claims the maritime boundary to be along the 141st meridian west out to a distance of 200 nmi, following the Alaska–Yukon land border. The position of the United States is that the line is perpendicular to the coast out to a distance of 200 nmi. This difference creates a wedge with an area of about 21,000 km2 that is claimed by both nations, Canadas position has its roots in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg between the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire that set the boundary between the two. They differ on what should be deemed equitable, Canada contends that an equidistance principle does not result in an equitable boundary, because distortion would occur. The coast of Yukon is concave, whereas the coast of Alaska is convex, because of this, Canada argues that special circumstances apply to this border, a position that the U. S. rejects. Before the end of 2004, the US leased eight plots of land below the water for oil exploration and exploitation, provoking a diplomatic protest from Canada. On 20 August 2009, United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke announced a moratorium on fishing of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. In July 2010, US–Canada negotiations have started in Ottawa with the meeting planned in 2011
12.
East Siberian Sea
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The East Siberian Sea is a marginal sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the Arctic Cape to the north, the coast of Siberia to the south, the New Siberian Islands to the west and Cape Billings, close to Chukotka and this sea borders on the Laptev Sea to the west and the Chukchi Sea to the east. This sea is one of the least studied in the Arctic area, the sea shores were inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous tribes of Yukaghirs, Chukchi and then Evens and Evenks, which were engaged in fishing, hunting and reindeer husbandry. They were then absorbed by Yakuts and later by Russians, major industrial activities in the area are mining and navigation within the Northern Sea Route, commercial fishing is poorly developed. The largest city and port is Pevek, the northernmost city of mainland Russia, the present name was assigned to the sea on 27 June 1935 by Decree of the Soviet Government. Before that, the sea had no name was intermixedly called in Russia as Indigirskoe, Kolymskoe, Severnoe, Sibirskoe or Ledovitoe. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the East Siberian Sea as follows, the Eastern limit of Laptev Sea. A line from the Northernmost point of Wrangel Island to the Northern sides of the De Long Islands and Bennett Island, from the Northernmost point of Wrangel Island through this island to Cape Blossom thence to Cape Yakan on the main land. Because it is open towards the Arctic Ocean in the north, the gulfs of the East Siberian Sea, like the Kolyma Bay, the Kolyma Gulf. There are no islands in the middle of the East Siberian Sea, but there are a few islands and island groups in its waters, like Ayon Island. The total area of the islands is only 80 km2, some islands mostly consist of sand and ice and gradually erode. The total catchment area is 1,342,000 km2, among the rivers flowing into the East Siberian Sea, the Indigirka, Alazeya, Uyandina, Chukochya, Kolyma, Rauchua, Chaun, and Pegtymel are the most important. Only a few rivers are navigable, the coastline of the sea is 3,016 km long. It makes large bends, sometimes stretching deep into the land, fine bends are rare and occur only in the river deltas. The coastal section between the New Siberian Islands and the mouth of the Kolyma River is uniform, with low and it extends landwards to the marshy tundra filled with numerous small lakes. In contrast, the coast to the east of the Kolyma River is mountainous, about 70% of the sea is shallower than 50 m, with predominant depths of 20–25 m. North-east to the mouth of the Kolyma and Indigirka rivers, there are deep trenches on the seabed, the region of small depths in the western part forms the Novosibirsk shoal. The greatest depths of about 150 m are found in the part of the sea
State of Campeche
