Sea of Okhotsk

Sea of Okhotsk
Sea of Okhotsk
Map of the Sea of Okhotsk
Location	North Asia and East Asia
Coordinates	55°N 150°E / 55°N 150°E / 55; 150
Type	Sea
Basin countries	Japan and Russia
Surface area	1,583,000 km2 (611,200 sq mi)
Average depth	859 m (2,818 ft)
Max. depth	3,372 m (11,063 ft)

The Sea of Okhotsk

The Sea of Okhotsk covers an area of 1,583,000 square kilometres (611,000 sq mi), with a mean depth of 859 metres (2,818 ft) and a maximum depth of 3,372 metres (11,063 ft). It is connected to the

Cold air from Siberia forms sea ice in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk. As the ice forms, it expels salt into the deeper layers. This heavy water flows east toward the Pacific, carrying oxygen and nutrients, supporting abundant sea life. The Sea of Okhotsk has warmed in some places by as much as 3°C (5.4°F) since preindustrial times, three times faster than the global mean. Warming inhibits the formation of sea ice and also drives fish populations north. The salmon catch on the northern Japanese coast has fallen 70% in the last 15 years, while the Russian chum salmon catch has quadrupled.^[5]

With the exception of

• Gallery
• 
  Nagayevo Bay near Magadan, Russia
• 
  Sea of Okhotsk coast of Hokkaido, Japan

The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Sea of Okhotsk as follows:^[7]

::On the Southwest. The Northeastern and Northern limits on the Japan Sea [In La Perouse Strait (Sôya Kaikyô). A line joining Sôni Misaki and Nishi Notoro Misaki (45°55'N). From Cape Tuik (51°45'N) to Cape Sushcheva].

::On the Southeast. A line running from

Hokusyû (Yezo) through the Kuril or Tisima Islands to Cape Lopatka (South point of Kamchatka

) in such a way that all the narrow waters between Hokusyû and Kamchatka are included in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Pre-modern

The Okhotsk people and the later Ainu culture, a coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer people, were located around the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as in northern Japan.^[8]

European exploration and settlement

Russian explorers

The first and foremost Russian settlement on the shore was the port of Okhotsk, which relinquished commercial supremacy to Ayan in the 1840s. The Russian-American Company all but monopolized the commercial navigation of the sea in the first half of the 19th century.

The

The harsh conditions of crab fishing in the Sea of Okhotsk is the subject of the most famous novel of the Japanese writer Takiji Kobayashi, The Crab Cannery Ship (1929).

The Peanut Hole

The Peanut Hole (named for its shape) was an area of open ocean at the center of the Sea of Okhotsk, about 55 km (30 mi) wide and 480 km (300 mi) long, that was surrounded by Russia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Since the Peanut Hole was not in the Russian EEZ, any country could fish there, and some began doing so in large numbers in 1991, catching perhaps as much as one million metric tons of pollock in 1992. This was seen by the Russian Federation as presenting a danger to Russian fish stocks, since the fish move in and out of the Peanut Hole from the Russian EEZ.

The Russian Federation petitioned the United Nations to declare the Peanut Hole to be part of Russia's continental shelf. In November 2013, a United Nations subcommittee accepted the Russian argument, and in March 2014 the full United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf ruled in favor of the Russian Federation.

Whaling

Bowhead whales were first caught in 1847, and dominated the catch between 1852 and the late 1860s.^[12] Between 1850 and 1853 the majority of the fleet went to the Bering Strait region to hunt bowheads, but intense competition, poor ice conditions, and declining catches forced the fleet back to the Sea of Okhotsk. From 1854 to 1856, an average of over 160 vessels cruised in the sea each year. As catches declined between 1858 and 1860 the fleet shifted back to the Bering Strait region.^[13]

The Russian military marine mammal program reportedly sources some of its animals from the Sea of Okhotsk.^[14]

Modern

South Sakhalin was administered by Japan as Karafuto Prefecture from 1907 to 1949. The Kuril Islands were Japanese from 1855 and 1875 till the end of World War II in 1945. Afterward, the Soviet Union occupied the territory.

During the

Despite its proximity to Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk has no native etymology in the Japanese language; its name, Ohōtsuku-kai (オホーツク海), is a transcription of the Russian name. This is also reflected in the name of Hokkaidō's Okhotsk Subprefecture, which faces the Sea of Okhotsk and is also known as the Okhotsk region (オホーツク地方, Ohōtsuku-chihō).

Oil and gas exploration

Twenty-nine zones of possible oil and gas accumulation have been identified on the Sea of Okhotsk shelf, which runs along the coast. Total reserves are estimated at 3.5 billion tons of equivalent fuel, including 1.2 billion tons of oil and 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas.^[16]

On 18 December 2011, the Russian oil drilling rig

New International Encyclopedia article about "Sea of Okhotsk

".

• Overview of Okhotsk region (PDF) Archived 2012-02-07 at the Wayback Machine