Difference between revisions of "Bering Strait" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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== References ==
 
== References ==
 
{{commonscat|Bering Strait}}
 
{{commonscat|Bering Strait}}
* Asher. Michael. April 24, 2007. [http://www.dailytech.com/Russia+Plans+Worlds+Longest+Undersea+Tunnel/article7022.htm Russia Plans World's Longest Undersea Tunnel] Daily Tech. Retrieved October 20, 2008.  
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* Asher. Michael. April 24, 2007. [http://www.dailytech.com/Russia+Plans+Worlds+Longest+Undersea+Tunnel/article7022.htm Russia Plans World's Longest Undersea Tunnel] ''Daily Tech''. Retrieved October 20, 2008.  
 
* Humber, Yuriy and Bradley Cook. April 18, 2007. [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=home&sid=a0bsMii8oKXw Russia Plans World's Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska] ''Bloomberg.com''. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
 
* Humber, Yuriy and Bradley Cook. April 18, 2007. [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=home&sid=a0bsMii8oKXw Russia Plans World's Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska] ''Bloomberg.com''. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
 
* Oliver, James. 2005. ''The Bering Strait crossing: a 21st century frontier between East and West''. Exmouth: Company of Writers. ISBN 0954699564  
 
* Oliver, James. 2005. ''The Bering Strait crossing: a 21st century frontier between East and West''. Exmouth: Company of Writers. ISBN 0954699564  
 
* Russell, Dick. 2001. ''Eye of the whale ; epic passage from Baja to Siberia''. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780684866086
 
* Russell, Dick. 2001. ''Eye of the whale ; epic passage from Baja to Siberia''. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780684866086
* Universal Peace Federation. [http://upf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=94 Bering Strait Project] Retrieved October 20, 2008.
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* ''Universal Peace Federation''. [http://upf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=94 Bering Strait Project] Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  
 
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Revision as of 16:10, 20 October 2008

Satellite photo of the Bering Strait, with the Diomede Islands at the center.

The Bering Strait (Russian: Берингов пролив Beringov proliv) is a sea strait linking the Arctic Ocean with the Bering Sea. It separates the continents of Asia and North America at their closest point; Cape Dezhnev, Russia (169°43' W) and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska (168°05' W). The latitude is approximately 65° 40' north, slightly south of the polar circle.

The boundary between the United States and Russian extends through the strait in a zig-zag fashion. While the Strait's narrowest point is about 53 miles (85 km) wide, two islands in its center, Little Diomede (U.S.) and Big Diomede (Russia), bring the distance of these two nations only 2.5 (4 km) miles apart at their closest point.

Although the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev passed by the strait in 1648, it is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian explorer who crossed the strait in 1728.


Geography

The Bering Strait is approximately 53 miles (85 km) wide at its narrowest, with an average depth of 30–50 meters (98–160 ft). Its deepest point is only 300 feet (91 m).

The Strait connects the Chukchi Sea (part of the Arctic Ocean) in the north with the Bering Sea (part of the Pacific Ocean) in the south. While some Bering Sea water passes through the strait into the Arctic Ocean, most of it returns to the Pacific.

Winter in the region is a season of severe storms, and a time when the Sea is covered by ice fields averaging four to five feet. Drift ice remains in the Strait even in mid-summer.

Land bridge

Frozen Bering Strait

The Bering Land Bridge is believed to have existed during the last Ice age due to the sea level falling several hundred feet. This land bridge, or isthmus, was roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) north to south at its greatest extent, which joined northeastern Asia to northwestern North America at various times during the Pleistocene ice ages. It was not glaciated because snowfall was extremely light due to the southwesterly winds from the Pacific Ocean having lost their moisture over the fully glaciated Alaska Range. The grassland steppe including the land bridge and stretching for several hundred miles into the continents on either side has been called Beringia.

The Bering land bridge is significant for several reasons, not least because it is believed to have enabled human migration to the Americas from Asia about 25,000 years ago. [1]

A study by geneticist Jody Hey [2] indicates that of the people migrating across this land bridge during that time period, only 70 left their genetic print in modern descendants, a minute effective founder population— unfortunately easily misread as though implying that only 70 people crossed to North America.

Seagoing coastal settlers may also have crossed much earlier, but scientific opinion remains divided on this point, and the coastal sites that would offer further information now lie submerged in up to a hundred meters of water offshore. Land animals were able to migrate through Beringia as well, bringing mammals that evolved in Asia to North America, such as proboscideans and lions, which evolved into now-extinct endemic North American species, and allowing equids and camelids that evolved in North America (and later became extinct there) to migrate to Asia.

Islands

Little Diomede Island (USA, left) and Big Diomede Island (Russia, right)

The Bering Strait contains numerous islands, including the two Diomede Islands. Fairway Rock lies less than ten miles (15 km) to the southeast of the Diomedes. South of Strait lies St. Lawrence Island.

The Diomede Islands consist of two rocky, tuya-type islands: the U.S. island of Little Diomede and the Russian island of Big Diomede In the middle of the Bering Strait, the Big Diomede is Russia's easternmost point, and despite being the western of the two islands, it is located at what is considered east on the map. In the same way, the Little Diomede despite being eastern one of the two islands, is located at what is considered west on the map.

Because the International Date Line runs equidistant between the islands at a distance of one mile (1.5km), the Russian and American sides are counted as falling on different calendar days, with Cape Dezhnev 21 hours ahead of the American side.

Population

Diomede (Inalik) village on the west coast of Little Diomede

The region around the Strait is sparsely populated. The Diomede Islands lie directly in the middle of the Bering Strait.

The native population of Big Diomede Island was relocated by the Soviet government to mainland Russia and the island is currently home to a small Russian military presence. [3]

Little Diomede has an Inupiat Eskimo population of 170 [4], mostly in the City of Diomede. This village has a school and a local store. Some Eskimos on this island are famous for their ivory carving. Mail is delivered by helicopter, weather permitting.

The area in the immediate neighborhood on the Alaskan side belongs to the Nome Census Area which has a population of 9,000 people. There is no road from the Bering strait to the main cities of Alaska. Air and water are the main mode of travel. There are a few roads around Nome. However there is no regular air connection across the strait, just a few summer charter flights. This is because of a Russian policy which only allows tourists in organized tours, with special permits required.

The Russian coast belongs to Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Provideniya (4,500 people) and Chukotsky (5,200 people) are the two areas located at the Bering Strait. These areas are also roadless.

The "Ice Curtain" border

During the Cold War, the Bering Strait marked the border between the United States and the Soviet Union. Traditionally, the indigenous peoples in the area had frequently crossed the border back and forth for "routine visits, seasonal festivals and subsistence trade", but were prevented from doing so during the Cold War. [5]

During this era the border became known as the "Ice Curtain". [6].

In 1987, an American long-distance open-water swimmer Lynne Cox symbolically helped ease tensions between the two countries by swimming across the border [7], and was congratulated jointly by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Expeditions

Nautical chart of the Bering Strait

In 1987 swimmer Lynne Cox swam the two miles (3 km) between the Diomede Islands from Alaska to the Soviet Union in 40 °F (+4 °C) water during the last years of the Cold War.

In July 1989 a British Expedition, Kayaks Across The Bering Strait, completed the first sea kayak crossing of the Bering Strait from Wales, in Alaska, to Cape Dezhneva, Siberia. The four expedition members, Robert Egelstaff, Trevor Potts, Greg Barton and Peter Clark, kayaked from Nome up the Alaskan coast, round Cape Prince of Wales before crossing the Strait via the Diomede Islands. Having completed the crossing, they continued north to Uelen, where they were welcomed by the Soviet Sports Committee and eventually returned to the United Kingdom via Moscow. This journey has been described as "The Everest of the Canoeing World" and was recorded in the film "Kayaking Into Tomorrow" (1989).

In 1998, Russian adventurer Dmitry Shparo and his son Matvey made the first known modern crossing of the frozen Bering Strait on skis.

Actor Ewan McGregor reported that part of the inspiration for his 19,000 mile, 4 month long, twelve country Long Way Round motorcycle journey from London to New York in 2004 was that, when viewed on a map, the gap between Russia and the U.S. across the Bering Strait was in fact very small. McGregor and his team ultimately crossed the strait with their motorcycles loaded onto a Magadan Airlines plane, flying from Magadan, Russia to Anchorage, Alaska.

In March 2006 Briton Karl Bushby and French-American adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed the strait on foot, walking across a frozen 56 mile (90 km) section in 15 days. The pair had to take a circuitous 150-mile route to cross the strait, crossing sheets of ice which were drifting with the current.[8] They were soon thereafter arrested for not entering Russia through a border control.

Bridge or tunnel

Suggestions have been made for the construction of a bridge between Alaska and Siberia, or alternatively a tunnel underneath the Strait. The construction of such a bridge or tunnel would face unprecedented engineering, political, and financial challenges. While this idea has been proposed a number of times in the past century, it has come to the fore with more serious contemplation in the early years of the twenty-first century.

A Bering Strait bridge or tunnel would provide an overland connection linking Asia, Africa and Europe with North America and South America. The Bering Strait could be spanned by a series of three bridges via the Diomede Islands for a total distance of about 80 km (50 miles). The two long spans would each be comparable in length to the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, currently the second-longest bridge in the world. However, the most recent proposal calls for construction of a tunnel.

The benefits of such a link would provide a transportation route for energy and commerce as well as passenger transport. While there are those who view such a bridge or tunnel as a strictly commercial venture, there are others who view it on a broader scale, involving political, economic, cultural, and spiritual connections. [9] However one views its purpose, it can only be accomplished through the willful cooperation of the political powers involved, for its construction will surely be a complex.

Notes

  1. National Geographic Society. Atlas of the Human Journey Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  2. Hey J. 2005. "On the number of New World founders: a population genetic portrait of the peopling of the Americas". PLoS Biology. 3 (6). ISSN 1544-9173
  3. Gary Tuchman. September 30, 2008. You CAN see Russia from here! Cable News Network (CNN). Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  4. Brenda S. Bowen. December 26, 2006. Intent To Prepare a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Navigation Improvements and Airport, Little Diomede Island, AK U.S. Environmental Agency. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  5. State of Alaska. Russian Heritage Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  6. Peter A. Iseman. October 23, 1988. Lifting the Ice Curtain New York Times. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  7. CBS Broadcasting Inc. September 17, 2003. Swimming To Antarctica Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  8. BBC News. April 3, 2006. Epic explorer crosses frozen sea Retrieved October 20, 2008.
  9. Stanislau Shushkevich. February 1, 2008. Bering Strait – Bridge of the Future UPF International. Retrieved October 20, 2008.

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Coordinates: 66°0′N 169°0′W / 66, -169

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