User:SriMesh/Sandbox/NorthSeaIntro

The North Sea is marginal, epeiric sea of the Atlantic Ocean on the on the European continental shelf between Norway and Denmark in the east, Scotland and England in the west, and Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the south. The North Sea is over 600 miles long and 350 miles wide, and has an area of around 222,000 square miles. Many of the important rivers of Europe drain into the North Sea and it serves as the only drainage for the Baltic Sea as well, through the Skagerrak and the the Kattegat, between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In the south, the North Sea connects with the rest of the Atlantic through the Strait of Dover into the English Channel and in the north through the Norwegian Sea. The North Sea has long been one of the important commercial highways of the world, as well as a source for valuable resources for border countries, but also a source of concern about the environmental effects of this economic bounty.

The North Sea (historically sometimes referred to as German Ocean and Germanic Sea from the Latin Mare Germanicum) averages about 100 m (325 ft) deep, but reaches down as deep as 700 m (2300 ft) and in some areas shallows can be a mere 15 m deep. The North Sea lies above the junction of three tectonic plates, Avalonia, Laurentia and Baltica, the geological actions of which can cause earthquakes and small tsunamis. However, the sea's coastal features are the result of glacial movements rather than tectonics. Deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the coastline of the northern part of the North Sea and flat sandy beaches and marshes form the shoals and mudflats along the southern coasts. These flatter areas are particularly susceptible to flooding especially as a result of storm tides and surges, which can submerge huge swaths of land and as a result of which land reclamation projects and elaborate systems of dikes and dunes have been constructed to protect coastal areas.

The development of European civilization have been heavily affected by the maritime traffic on the North Sea. The Romans and the Vikings sought to extend their territory across the sea. Both the Hanseatic League and the Netherlands sought to dominate commerce on the North Sea and through it to access the markets of the world. Britain's development as a sea power depended heavily upon its dominance in the North Sea, where some of its rivals sought power, first the Netherlands and finally Germany and to a lesser extent Russia and the Scandinavian nations at various points along the way. Commercial enterprises, growing populations, and limited resources gave all the nations on the North Sea the desire to control or access it for their own commercial, military, and colonial ends. In both World War I and World War II the North Sea was a theater of war. Britain's success in containing the German Navy to its harbors was crucial to the outcome of both wars.

Since the war, rights to the North Sea have been formalized and its importance has turned from the military entirely to the economic. Traditional economic activity, such as fishing and shipping have continued to grow and other resources, such as fossil fuels and wind energy have been discovered and developed.



According to The Influence of Sea Power upon History by Alfred Thayer Mahan, there are six principal conditions which affect the sea power of nations. I. Geographical Position. II. Physical Conformation, including, as connected therewith, natural productions and climate. III. Extent of Territory. IV. Number of Population. V. Character of the People. VI. Character of the Government, including therein the national institutions.

Free non copyrighted material available about the North Sea... CIA World Fact Book The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceans The Influence of Sea Power upon History

Atlantic Ocean note: includes Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Caribbean Sea, Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, part of the Drake Passage, Gulf of Mexico, Labrador Sea, Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Norwegian Sea, almost all of the Scotia Sea, and other tributary water bodies

Environment - current issues industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution and oil pollution.

Economy - production of crude oil and natural gas

Another Free source already is combined in with above.: North Sea or German Ocean is the southern arm of the Arctic Ocean, lying between Britain and Norway. It communicates with the Atlantic through the English Channel and Straits of Dover on the south, and by Pentland Firth and the Orkney and Shetland Channels on the north, and with the Baltic through Skager-Rack and Cattegat. It is over 600 miles long and 400 miles wide, and has an area of 180,000 square miles. The sea is in most places quite shallow, averaging 61 fathoms, but on the Norwegian coast is 360 fathoms deep. It is the receptacle of the waters of the Thames, Ouse, Humber, Tyne, Tweed, Forth, Tay, Scheldt, Rhine, Weser and Elbe. The water is probably the least salty of any of the large seas, and, except in the summer, is warmer than the surrounding atmosphere. The tides are irregular, having a large ebb and flow in some places, while it is hardly perceptible in others. The North Sea has long been one of the commercial highways of the world, and affords a valuable fishing-ground.

AT 83 kilobytes in length the lead should be 3-4 paragraphs in length.

The average article is around 32 kilobytes and 2-3 paragraphs long

Lead paragraph can stand on its own so that it induces the reader to explore the sections, ie if the lead if featured on a portal page. It should establish significances, large implications and why we should care.

The first sentence should give the shortest possible relevant characterization of the subject. If the subject is amenable to definition, the first sentence should give a concise one that puts the article in context. Rather than being typically technical, it should be a concise, conceptually sound, characterization driven, encyclopedic definition

From wiktionary: North Sea: An inlet of the Atlantic Ocean between Britain (in the west), Scandinavia (in the east) and Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France (in the south).

Sea: A large body of salty water. (Major seas are known as oceans.)

CONTEXT
concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies, if there are any.WP Lead
 * 1. Context - geographically localised community located within describing the category or field in which the idea belongs.

ATLANTIC OCEAN: The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres (41.1 million square miles), it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas". Covering approximately 20% of Earth's surface, the Atlantic Ocean is second only to the Pacific in size. With its adjacent seas it occupies an area of about 106,400,000 square kilometers (41,100,000 sq mi); without them, it has an area of 82,400,000 square kilometers (31,800,000 sq mi). The land area that drains into the Atlantic is four times that of either the Pacific or Indian oceans. The volume of the Atlantic Ocean with its adjacent seas is 354,700,000 cubic kilometers (85,100,000 cu mi) and without them 323,600,000 cubic kilometers (77,640,000 cu mi).
 * 1) 1 Geography
 * 2) 2 Ocean bottom
 * 3) 3 Water characteristics
 * 4) 4 Climate
 * 5) 5 History
 * 6) 6 Economy
 * 7) 7 Terrain
 * 7.1 Elevation extremes
 * 7.2 Natural resources
 * 7.3 Natural hazards
 * 1) 8 Current environmental issues
 * 8.1 Marine pollution
 * 1) 9 Major ports and harbours

CHARACTERIZATION

 * 2. Characterization - appearance, age, gender, educational level, vocation or occupation, financial status, marital status, social status, cultural background, hobbies, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ambitions, motivations, personality, what the term refers to as used in the given context.

NORTH SEA TABLE OF CONTENTS: introduce these topics.... in the introduction o 3.1 Geological history o 3.2 Plate tectonics o 3.3 Geological features o 4.1 Basic data o 4.2 Water circulation o 4.3 Tides o 5.1 Northern fjords, skerries, and cliffs o 5.2 Southern shoals and mudflats o 5.3 Storm tides o 5.4 Coastal preservation o 6.1 Roman occupation o 6.2 Viking expansion o 6.3 Hanseatic League o 6.4 The Netherlands as a world economic power o 6.5 Britain: naval superpower o 6.6 First World War o 6.7 Second World War o 6.8 After the war o 6.9 Political status o 7.1 Oil and gas o 7.2 Fishing o 7.3 Mineral resources o 7.4 Renewable energy o 7.5 Tourism
 * 1 Naming
 * 2 Location
 * 3 Geology
 * 4 Hydrology
 * 5 Coasts
 * 6 History
 * 7 Natural resources
 * 8 Marine traffic

EXPLANATION

 * 3. Explanation - deeper meaning and background.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

 * 4. Compare and contrast - how it relates to other topics, if appropriate. need to add about statistics in comparison to other seas comparison History Geography Physical geography (area, unique features) Major Parks Transportation Demographics population racial/ethnic makeup religious makeup Economy Government City Executive current, previous executives representative body Education Sites of interest Sports Notable natives type: subdivision which have a distict existence recognized by any Census, the municipality, or just casually by the people who live there. legal recognition, such as a historic district, parking district, voting district, or official neighborhood council; or if there are independent groups which establish boundaries of some kind,

FROM: CIA World Fact Book: tributary water bodies of the Atlantic Ocean:

The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude.
 * 1) 1 Etymology
 * 1.1 Name in other languages
 * 1) 2 Geophysical data
 * 2.1 Dimensions
 * 2.2 Sea ice
 * 2.3 Hydrography
 * 2.4 Salinity
 * 2.5 Regional emergence
 * 1) 3 Geographic data
 * 3.1 Subdivisions
 * 3.2 Land use
 * 3.3 Demographics
 * 1) 4 Geologic history
 * 2) 5 History
 * 3) 6 Biology
 * 4) 7 Economy
 * 5) 8 The Helsinki Convention
 * 8.2 1992 Convention
 * 1) 9 Countries
 * 2) 10 Islands and archipelagoes
 * 3) 11 Cities

The Black Sea is an inland sea between southeastern Europe and the Anatolian peninsula (Turkey) and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits


 * 1) 1 Name
 * 2) 2 Geology and bathymetry
 * 3) 3 Hydrology and hydrochemistry
 * 4) 4 Fauna
 * 5) 5 Mediterranean connection during the Holocene
 * 6) 6 Deluge theory
 * 7) 7 History
 * 8) 8 Holiday resorts and spas
 * 9) 9 Regional organizations

The Caribbean Sea (pronounced or ) is a tropical sea in the Western Hemisphere, part of the Atlantic Ocean, southeast of the Gulf of Mexico.....The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest salt water seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 km² (1,063,000 square miles).
 * 1) 1 History
 * 2) 2 Geology
 * 3) 3 Ecology
 * 4) 4 Weather
 * 5) 5 Economy and human activity
 * 6) 6 Popular culture

Davis Strait (French: Détroit de Davis); lies between mid-western Greenland and Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

The Denmark Strait (Danmarksstrædet, Grænlandssund, the latter meaning Greenland Strait) is a strait between Greenland (northwest) and Iceland (southeast). The Norwegian island of Jan Mayen is located northeast of the strait.

part of the Drake Passage, The Drake Passage is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica.

The Gulf of Mexico is the ninth largest body of water in the world. It is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. The gulf basin is approximately 615,000 mi² (1.6 million km²).
 * 1) 1 History
 * 1.1 Formation
 * 1.2 European exploration
 * 1) 2 Principal features
 * 2) 3 Pollution

Labrador Sea (French: mer du Labrador) (60°00'N, 55°00'W) is an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean between Labrador and Greenland.

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km² (965,000 sq mi), but its connection to the Atlantic (the Strait of Gibraltar) is only 14 km (9 mi) wide.
 * 1) 1 Name
 * 2) 2 History
 * 3) 3 Geography and climate
 * 4) 4 Oceanography
 * 5) 5 Bordering countries
 * 6) 6 Subdivisions
 * 7) 7 Geology
 * 7.1 Geodynamic
 * 7.2 Paleoclimatic
 * 7.3 Paleoenvironmental analysis
 * 1) 8 Ecology and global warming

North Sea,

The Norwegian Sea (Norwegian: Norskehavet) is part of the North Atlantic Ocean northwest of Norway, located between the North Sea (i.e. north of Scotland) and the Greenland Sea.

almost all of the Scotia Sea, The Scotia Sea (-57.5°N, -40°W) is partly in the Southern Ocean and mostly in the Atlantic Ocean between Tierra del Fuego, Staten Island, Shag Rocks, Black Rock, South Georgia, Clerke Rocks, South Sandwich Islands, South Orkney Islands, and the Antarctic Peninsula, and bordered on the west by Drake Passage

CATEGORY: SEAS OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. Baffin Bay (French: Baie de Baffin) is a sea between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 1 130 km (700 mi) across from north to south. It is not navigable most of the year because of the presence of large numbers of icebergs.

The Argentine Sea (Spanish: Mar Argentino) refers to the sea within the continental shelf off the Argentine mainland. It is a term often related to the Argentine claims to both the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. It is located in the South Atlantic Ocean off the southeastern coast of Argentina, extending from the approximate latitude of Montevideo, Uruguay, southward to Tierra del Fuego, and is situated about 500 miles (800 km) north of Antarctica. The Argentine Sea has a surface of 386,102 sq. mi. (1,000,000 km²) and is one of the largest seas in the world.

CATEGORY: MARGINAL SEAS OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN: The Celtic Sea (An Mhuir Cheilteach; Y Môr Celtaidd; Cornish and Devonian: An Mor Keltek; Breton: Ar Mor Keltiek) is the area of the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Ireland.

The English Channel (La Manche, "the sleeve") is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the island of Great Britain from northern France and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about 560 km (350 miles) long and varies in width from 240 km (150 miles) at its widest to only 34 km (21 miles) in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of only some 75,000 km² (29,000 square miles).


 * 1) 1 Geography
 * 2) 2 Name
 * 3) 3 Archaeology
 * 4) 4 History
 * 4.1 The way to the British Isles
 * 4.2 Norsemen and Normans
 * 4.3 Britain: the naval superpower
 * 4.4 The First World War
 * 4.5 The Second World War
 * 1) 5 Population
 * 5.1 English side
 * 5.2 French side
 * 5.3 Channel Islands
 * 1) 6 Shipping
 * 2) 7 Ecology
 * 3) 8 Transport links
 * 8.1 Ferry
 * 8.2 Channel Tunnel
 * 1) 9 Economy
 * 9.1 Tourism
 * 1) 10 Culture and languages
 * 10.1 Celtic Languages
 * 10.2 Germanic languages
 * 10.3 Romance Languages
 * 1) 11 Notable channel crossings
 * 11.1 By boat
 * 11.2 By swimming

The Irish Sea (Irish: Muir Éireann or Muir Meann; Scottish Gaelic: Muir Eireann Welsh: Môr Iwerddon, Manx: Mooir Vannin) separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by St George's Channel between the Republic of Ireland and Wales and Cornwall to the south and by the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland to the north-east. The Isle of Man lies in the middle of the Irish Sea. The sea is of high economic importance to regional trade, shipping and transport, fishing and power generation in the form of wind power and nuclear plants. There has been long discussion of building an 80 km (50 mile) rail tunnel to link Britain and Ireland; annual traffic between the two islands amounts to over 12 million passengers and 17 megatonnes of trade. o 3.1 Radioactive pollution o 5.1 East Irish Sea Basin o 5.2 Caernarfon Bay Basin o 5.3 The Cardigan Bay Basin
 * 1 Shipping
 * 2 Origin
 * 3 Environment
 * 4 U-boat Alley
 * 5 Oil and gas exploration
 * 6 Proposed tunnel projects
 * 7 Wind power

The Sargasso Sea is an elongated region in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by ocean currents. On the west it is bounded by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. It is roughly 700 statute miles wide and 2,000 statute miles long (1,100 km wide and  3,200 km long). It stretches from roughly 70 degrees west to 40 degrees west, and from 25 degrees north to 35 degrees north. Bermuda is near the western fringes of the sea. Sargasso Sea is the only sea without shores.

CRITICISM

 * 5. Criticism - include criticism if there has been significant, notable criticism. need to compare to other SEAS to finish up...and look at the comglomerated statistics from each.



There is no wikiproject oceans or seas for guidelines only WikiProject Lakes and rivers.

Lead paragraph
The first paragraph should be a self-contained description including the most important things to know; name(s) - both historic and current - in bold, location (continent/countries/seaboards), and notable facts about the lake, such as largest port (see Lead section for guidelines). location (continent/countries/seaboards), and notable facts about the river, such as longest, second longest, main waterway of a country, etc

Hydrology / Course for Rivers
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Info on water basins can be found at World resources Institute (site is down; archive). Antarctic water basin information can be researched using USGS maps

Geology
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Natural history
Mention distinctive plants and animals associated with any part of the lake.

History
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Economy
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Lists
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List the major flora and fauna such as species of interest. List the tributaries, starting from the mouth and going upstream. Add important subtributaries in sublists. Major tributaries should be links if there is a reasonable chance of article content, minor tributaries should be just names.

List the cities and towns along with the river, also in upstream order.

List dams, locks, waterfalls, rapids, if there are more than a couple and/or they're not mentioned in the lead or course narrative.

References and external links
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Infobox
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CATEGORIES: Marine ecoregions |  Seas | Oceanography | Plate tectonics | Seas of the Atlantic Ocean