Sea of Marmara
Regional setting of the Sea of Marmara connecting to the Black Sea. Source: Norman Einstein
Seas of the World 
The Sea of Marmara (also Sea of Marmora and, in the context of classical antiquity, as the Propontis) is an inland brackish sea which connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea.
The Sea of Marmara has an overall salinity about two thirds of that of the average open sea of the world; however, it is strongly vertically stratified, with very high density, high salinity water at the bottom; and, low desity, low salinity water at the top. Bottom waters are so dense that they virtually do not circulate to the surface.
Sea of Marmara. Source: Demis
Contents
Geography
The Sea of Marmara is essentially an element of the border of Europe and Asia. Waters of the Sea of Marmara connect to the Aegean Sea via the Dardanelles, and connect to the Black Sea via the Bosphorus. The surface area of the Sea of Marmara is slightly over 13.200 square kilometers.
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See Also
- Aegean Sea
- Black Sea
- Seas of the World on the Encyclopedia of Earth
References
- International Hydrographic Organization. 1953. Limits of Oceans and Seas, 3rd edition.
- Hubert Caspers. Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In J. W. Hedgpeth, editor, Treatise of Marine Ecology and Paleoecology. Vol. 1: Ecology, pages 801–890. Geological Society of America, 1957.
- L. Zenkevitch. Biology of the Seas of the U.S.S.R. Wiley Interscience, 1963.
- Rhodes W. Fairbridge, editor. The Encyclopedia of Oceanography. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1966.
- Emil V. Stanev. On the mechanisms of the Black Sea circulation. Earth–Science Reviews, 28:285–319, 1990.
- J. W. Murray. Hydrographic variability in the Black Sea. In Erol Izdar and J. W. Murray, editors, Black Sea Oceanography, pages 1–16. Kluwer Academic Publ., 1991a.
