The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, Alaska and west of Canada’s Arctic Islands.
It’s named after hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort. The Mackenzie River, the longest river in Canada, drains into the Canadian a part of the Beaufort Sea, west of Tuktoyaktuk, one of many few everlasting settlements on the ocean’s shores. Different essential rivers that vacant into the Beaufort Sea are the Kongakut River in Alaska and the Firth River in Yukon.
Learn alongside to study 10 fascinating info in regards to the Beaufort Sea.
1. Incorporates vital petroleum and pure fuel assets
The Beaufort Sea has many petroleum and pure fuel reserves, such because the Amauligak discipline. These reserves had been discovered between the Fifties and the Eighties, and since then, useful resource exploration has turn into a significant exercise within the area.
It was estimated to include round 250 km3 of oil and 300,000 km3 of pure fuel when first explored within the Fifties. Offshore drilling commenced in 1972, and 70 wells had been up by the Eighties, which rose to 200 by 2000. Therefore, round 46.5 million m3 of soil was dredged. Round 50,400 m3 of oil was produced in 1986.
Taglu Gasoline discipline was discovered within the Mackenzie River Delta in 1971, adopted by the Parson Lake and Niglintgak fields. The estimated fuel reserves of those fields embody 58,600 km3, 35,400 km3 and 13,600 km3.
The Amauligak discipline is the largest identified oil reserve of the ocean, present in 1984, and is estimated to have 37.3 km3 of oil and 38,500 km3 of fuel. Nonetheless, improvement is hindered by the distant areas of those deposits.
In 2017, the usBureau of Ocean Power Administration allowed Eni, an Italian multinational oil and fuel firm, to drill 4 oil exploration wells on Spy Island, one of many 4 synthetic islands within the Beaufort Sea.
2. Has a Advanced Geography
Many rivers, just like the Kongakut River in Alaska and the Firth River in Yukon, drain into this Sea. The most important river that flows into it’s the Mackenzie, additionally the longest river in Canada. Its coastal shelf is slender, particularly east of Level Barrow within the Alaskan a part of the Beaufort Sea. One main underwater characteristic right here is submarine valleys. The Sea turns into broader close to the Mackenzie River delta however doesn’t exceed 145 km.
Nearer to the coast, the depths are shallower than 60 m, however they quickly enhance northwards up to a couple km, turning into an enormous platform much like that of oceans.
There are a number of islands within the Beaufort Sea and the Mackenzie River Delta. Some massive ones lie west of the Mackenzie River, like Herschel Island, which is simply 4 km from the shore. Barter Island is 03 km from the coast and spans 13 km2. The Beaufort Sea coasts are low; most elevations vary from 250 to 750 m.
The soil stays frozen all year long, and at a depth under a metre and even much less, it varieties permafrost. Only a few centimetres thaw within the quick summers. Because of this buildings are elevated above the bottom on picket piles immersed within the permafrost.
3. Border Dispute between Canada and the U.S
An ongoing border dispute between Canada and the usinvolves a wedge-shaped a part of the Beaufort Sea within the Arctic Ocean. The disputed area known as the Beaufort Sea Triangle or the Beaufort Sea Wedge. It covers an space of 21,000 sq. kilometres.
The problem centres round the place the maritime border between the 2 nations must be drawn within the area. Canada claims the boundary must be as per the 141st meridian west, and the US claims it ought to deviate barely east of that line.
The border subject is essential for Canada and the U.S. as a result of because the ice melts attributable to international warming and extra of the ocean opens for navigation, it’s going to open new fishing and useful resource improvement alternatives. Management of the Beaufort Sea waters within the disputed area has financial implications for each events.
Canada and U.S have negotiated the dispute because the Nineteen Seventies. Nonetheless, they failed to achieve an settlement on the identical and periodically tried to affirm their claims. The disputed wedge shouldn’t be clearly delineated on official maps issued by each.
4. No large-scale industrial fishing allowed
In 2009, the usSecretary of Commerce introduced a moratorium on fishing the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. It was imposed as a result of it was argued that when international warming made these waters out there for industrial fisheries, they might be exploited, threatening the delicate ecosystem. Therefore, the necessity to develop a plan for sustainable fishing was emphasised.
There aren’t any widespread industrial fisheries within the waters now. This resolution stirred controversies in Canada because the area the place the USA introduced the moratorium is a large wedge-shaped a part of the disputed waters.
Resulting from restricted scientific analysis and proof, the moratorium is in place to protect the area’s fish shares which can be but not absolutely understood. Many fish species are data-poor.
It’ll keep in place till extra analysis on fish populations and the ecosystem impacts are recognized. This could assist decide sustainable catch ranges if industrial fishing is allowed.
Nonetheless, subsistence fishing by the native communities continues within the Beaufort Sea underneath the Moratorium since it’s on a really small scale utilizing conventional strategies and has a minimal ecological footprint.
In 2014, the Authorities of Canada additional introduced that no industrial fisheries could be thought of within the Beaufort Sea till analysis exhibits sustainable shares that might be out there to the Inuvialuit first.
It additionally designated components of the Beaufort Sea as Marine Protected Areas. One such is the Anguniaqvia niqiqyuam, and it encloses the Parry Peninsula within the Amundsen Gulf. One other one is Tarium Niryutait, located on the Mackenzie River delta and estuary. These marine protected areas had been established to guard the wildlife of the area, the completely different native species and habitats for the Inuvialuit neighborhood.
5. Stays frozen all year long
The Beaufort Sea is frozen many of the yr, aside from August and September, when ice breaks close to its coast and opens an space that was as soon as a 50- to 100-km-wide strip of open water. Within the 2000s, local weather change within the Arctic expanded the ice-free space.
Channels of Mackenzie River thaw early, in Could and June. The thawing will increase the common water discharge from 150,000 to 250,000 m3/s. Some new modifications had been recognized within the Beaufort Sea’s ice cowl in 2009. Although ice is steady, and so are water temperature and salinity, the ice construction has modified. The brand new ice, referred to as rotten ice, is thinner and weaker.
6. The seawater is separated into 4 distinct layers
The Beaufort Sea water has 4 completely different layers. The highest layer is 100 m, which is the floor water with a temperature of -1.4 levels Celsius in summer season and -1.8 levels Celsius in winter. The second layer is shaped by inflows from the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, with waters coming via the Bering Strait.
The warmest and the deep Atlantic layer has a temperature between 0 and 1. The water on the backside is colder at -0.4 levels Celsius and -0.8 levels Celsius. Common salinity lies between 28-32% components per thousand going from the south to the north. Air temperatures are -27 levels Celsius in January and 11 levels Celsius in July.
The water currents kind the Beaufort Gyre, which ends up in south-westerly and westerly currents near the shores. The Mackenzie River additionally impacts this circulation, which induces minor eastward steams near its mouth. The river brings round 15 million tonnes of sediments wealthy in dolomite and calcium carbonate. These deposits are unfold over the ocean and are blended with gravel and dust.
7. The shoreline of Beaufort Sea marks the restrict of polar bears in North America
The coast of Beaufort Sea is roofed with tundra and is the northern restrict of North America’s terrestrial vary of polar bears. The Mackenzie River is an important habitat for seabirds and whales and is untouched by industrial site visitors. Its delta has many ponds and lakes inhabited by muskrats.
Round 80 species of zooplankton, over 70 species of phytoplankton and round 700 species of bryozoans, molluscs, and crustaceans; nonetheless, their inhabitants is small as a result of chilly local weather.
The jap a part of the Beaufort Sea is dwelling to Beluga whales. Their inhabitants is steady and would possibly even enhance.
It isn’t affected by offshore oil exploration within the area. Belugas spends summer season within the coastal areas and the Mackenzie River delta, each ice-free presently. In winter, they migrate to the polynyas of the deep sea. Analysis exhibits that the belugas of the Beaufort Sea are completely different from these of different Canadian and Alaskan waters regardless of sharing an analogous habitat.
8. Has a easy meals chain
The meals chain of the Beaufort Sea is comparatively easy. It begins with algae and phytoplankton, the power supply for zooplankton and coastal amphipods, that are meals for fish just like the polar cod, Arctic char, and seabirds.
Polar cod is meals for arctic char, narwhal, seals and belugas. Bearded seals and walrus feed on benthic invertebrates. The Polar bear lies on the highest of the meals chain, primarily feeding on seals and huge marine mammals.
Main fish species discovered within the Beaufort Sea embody polar cod, arctic cod, arctic char, saffron cod, arctic cisco, lake whitefish, pacific herring, broad whitefish, inconnu, flatfish, fourhorn sculpin, and many others.
9. Has a historical past of occupation going again to 4000 years
Proof means that Paleo-Eskimos arrived on the Beaufort Coastline round 4000 years in the past. There was the Dorset tradition, the Thule, and the fashionable Inuit. In earlier instances, they engaged in fishing. Hundreds of years previous fish bones had been present in historic settlements. The folks lived a nomadic life and shaped everlasting settlements a lot later.
These communities nonetheless thrive on these coasts. Their inhabitants is rising; nonetheless, there’s a lack of jobs, and youth favor to maneuver overseas for employment and higher residing situations.
Tuktoyaktuk, Canada and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, are two main settlements alongside the Beaufort Sea. Tuktoyaktuk is an Inuvialuit hamlet close to the delta of Mackenzie River within the Inuvik Area of the Northwest Territories. It’s north of the Arctic Circle on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and is the one place within the Arctic related to different components of Canada by roadways. It was referred to as Port Brabant after British colonisation, and in 1950, it turned Canada’s first indigenous settlement, which reclaimed its conventional title.
Prudhoe Bay lies in North Slope Borough within the U.S. state of Alaska. Folks residing there are often fishermen and mine employees employed within the oil firms. Most of them work on the Prudhoe Bay Oil discipline, the most important oil discipline in North America. It lies within the coastal lowland on the Northern Slope.
Some vacationers arrive right here from Fairbanks by bus or non-public autos to see the tundra, the midnight solar, and the Arctic Ocean. Prudhoe Bay was named by British explorer John Franklin after his classmate Captain Algernon Percy, Baron Prudhoe.
10. Has synthetic islands
Many islands lie within the Beaufort Sea. Whereas a few of them are pure, others are synthetic and got here as much as meet the wants of the oil drilling trade. Two such man-made islands are Endicott and the North Star Islands. The previous was arrange in 1987, and the latter was arrange in 2001 to allow efficient oil drilling. The crude oil is transported to Port Valdez via the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
The Beaufort Sea is experiencing air pollution attributable to oil spills throughout delivery and oil drilling processes, harming its pristine surroundings. Some rivers that empties into the ocean additionally carry the chemical compounds and refuse that pollute it additional.
This has led to a decline within the marine inhabitants. One more reason for the decline was searching, particularly of Bowhead whales, between the late Eighties and 1914. Nonetheless, legal guidelines had been delivered to cease searching because the populations of those majestic mammals declined quickly. Rules like curbs on fishing have helped defend the threatened species within the Beaufort Sea.
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Disclaimer: The creator’s views expressed on this article don’t essentially mirror the views of Marine Perception. Information and charts, if used within the article, have been sourced from out there data and haven’t been authenticated by any statutory authority. The creator and Marine Perception don’t declare it to be correct nor settle for any accountability for a similar. The views represent solely the opinions and don’t represent any pointers or suggestions on any plan of action to be adopted by the reader.
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About Creator
Zahra is an alumna of Miranda Home, College of Delhi. She is an avid author, possessing immaculate analysis and modifying expertise. Creator of a number of tutorial papers, she has additionally labored as a contract author, producing many technical, artistic and advertising items. A real aesthete at coronary heart, she loves books a bit of greater than anything.
