O Bering Strait is a location on the Bering Sea that separates the American continent, more precisely the Alaska (I ado Asian continent, more precisely the cable Dezhnev (Russia). In geography, the concept of narrow refers to a channel spanning tens or a few hundred kilometers and separating two landmasses, two oceans, or two seas.
The Bering Sea, in turn, is a portion of water located in the Pacific Ocean, with 2.3 million km², and surrounded by the continents mentioned above to the east and west and also to the south by the Aleutian Islands. Its widest point is about 2400 km long and its narrowest point is precisely that of Bering, with only 85 km from one end to the other.
The origin of the name of the Bering Strait comes from the homage to the Danish navigator naturalized Russian, Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681-1741), who was the first to explore the place in the year 1728. The discovery in question was extremely useful for cartographic purposes, since the exact delimitation between ocean and continent in this region of the globe was not known. The navigator in question, incidentally, perished precisely on an expedition in the region, when he tried, among other things, determine the location of what would later be called Alaska, on a trip that had 78 people and only 46 survivors.
Vitus Bering, responsible for the first navigation over the Bering Strait
Due to climatic adversities in the region, the Bering Sea is considered one of the most dangerous places for navigation in the world and even for fishing activities. Between 2000 and 2009, there were numerous shipwrecks and more than 500 dead fishermen. During the winter, temperatures drop abruptly to values close to -45ºC, with strong winds and some storms, which produce huge waves. Many layers of ice are formed, which eventually trap the ships, and also some icebergs, not to mention the smoke that is sometimes produced when a cold current from the Arctic meets a warm current from the Arctic. Pacific.
Many researchers claim that it was through crossing the Bering Strait that the first human beings arrived in america for thousands of years, forming the native peoples of that continent. The hypotheses state as much that the strait would be frozen during a glaciation, which allowed its crossing, as that it would have the its ocean floor exposed due to the greater freezing of the glaciers in that same glaciation, with the consequent retraction of the waters of the sea.
There are several construction projects to be built in the Bering Strait, none of them have yet come out of the paper. One of the best known is the Intercontinental Peace Bridge, which would unite the two continents and would also serve as a trade route. However, its construction, in addition to being very expensive, would also challenge the strong waves formed in the strait and the climatic adversities.
The United States and Russia recently also met to discuss the construction of a tunnel across the Bering Strait, which would cost them $100 billion. governments and would be used for industrial as well as tourism purposes, which would even allow the construction of a rail link between North America and the Europe.
By Me. Rodolfo Alves Pena
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/geografia/estreito-bering.htm
