Facts about the Baltic Sea

For Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean), the sea signified life. Clearly, over centuries many men have developed deep love for the sea. Many have perished for their love and many have embraced their love after they perished. It is now a very popularly used after death practice, to be "buried at sea". It has also been a source of mystery for decades. One of the biggest mysteries of our time, the Bermuda Triangle, lies in the oceans!

The Baltic sea, is located in Northern Europe. It is guarded by the Gulf of Bothnia in the north, the Gulf of Finland in the northeast, and the Gulf of Riga on the east. From its south, it drains into the North sea and then into the Atlantic Ocean.

It is the largest body of low salinity water (also known as "brackish water"). For this fact, it has gained a lot of popularity among researchers. It is a glacially scoured river valley and it is not formed due to collision of plates (which is the usual reason); this is the reason for its relative shallowness.

It would also interest many, that this sea is actually only a fourth in size of its drainage basin, which roughly holds a population of 85 million. However, 48% of this land contains dense forests, another 17% is just unused open land, 8% are wetlands, and a meager 20% is used for agriculture and pasture.

So, the population is concentrated in the remaining 7%. 45% of the population is Polish, 12% is Russian, 10% is Swedish, and the rest are from about ten other nationalities. So, it is a multi-cultural place, an obvious reason for its attraction from many tourists and behavioral researchers.

Going back in time, the area was just a river bed, prior to the Pleistocene: the Eridanos. Multiple glaciations at this time, would be the plausible reason for the river bed to get further scooped into a basin. By the time the Eamian interglacial occurred, the Eamian sea was well in place.

This now leads us to the several names it has had over the years. The Romans had christened it as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. This name originated from the Suebi tribe that resided there. In Getica, Jordanes has called it the Gremanic sea.

The Scandinavians called it "The Eastern Lake". An older name was recorded in Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus. It was "Gandvik", "vik" can loosely be comprehended to mean "bay". This shows that it was understood as an inlet of the sea since the Viking Age.

The Baltic sea experiment which started in 1992, is studying the relationship and exchange of energy from the atmosphere, to the surface of the earth. This experiment is being conducted to study the climatic changes and their causes, in a concrete manner. The reason why it is specially selected for research, is the fact that it is neither a freshwater body, nor a saltwater body. This makes its ecosystem very vulnerable.

The Baltic sea, in spite of being one of the best studied ones in the world, is also one of the most polluted ones. The pollution is now being effectively monitored. However, the deterioration of this water body has been in process since decades. It was a grave for all those who were tipped off the refugee-ships in 1945.

A group of Russian scientists also discovered a whopping figure of 5,000 crashed airplanes and sunken warships at the bottom of this water body. As per their further research, this had happened around the time of the Second World War. The alarming pollution teamed with the stagnation of its deeper waters, is life-threatening to its resources.

Our planet, our home, is 70% water. And we humans cannot survive without it. In light of this, it would not be acceptable (for the sake of the future generations) to let such deterioration happen to a water body.