Black Sea

The Black Sea is an inland sea between southeastern Europe and western Asia, connected to the Mediterranean through the Bosporus, Sea of Marmara, and Dardanelles.

Bosporus: A narrow strait in Turkey linking the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. Its two-layer exchange carries dense Mediterranean water into the Black Sea and fresher water outward.
Pontic–Caspian steppe: A broad grassland region north of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Its rivers and peoples have shaped the Black Sea's northern shores and hinterland.
Port of Odesa: A major Ukrainian seaport on the northwestern Black Sea coast. Its role in grain exports shows the sea's importance to global food supply.
Eutrophication: Nutrient enrichment of water that can drive excessive algal growth and oxygen depletion. Nutrient runoff caused severe ecosystem disruption in parts of the Black Sea.
Black Sea undersea river: A dense, sediment-laden flow moving along the Black Sea floor through the Bosporus outlet. It shows how saline water and suspended sediment can flow beneath the surface out of the basin.
Greek colonization: The establishment of Greek settlements around the Mediterranean and Black Sea from the eighth century BCE onward. Greek colonies connected Black Sea coasts to wider Mediterranean trade and culture.
Port of Constanța: Romania's principal seaport, located on the western Black Sea coast. It anchors shipping and river-sea trade near the Danube's outlet.
Mnemiopsis leidyi: A predatory comb jelly native to the western Atlantic that became invasive in the Black Sea. Its spread contributed to the collapse of some fisheries by consuming zooplankton and fish eggs.
Black Sea anoxic layer: The deep Black Sea water mass with little or no dissolved oxygen and abundant hydrogen sulfide. Restricted mixing and density layering leave much of the deep basin without oxygen.
Byzantine Empire: The eastern Roman state that endured from late antiquity until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Its capital controlled the straits and made the sea central to imperial commerce.

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