An epeiric sea is a shallow sea

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

 that extends over part of a continent

Continent

A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...

.

Epeiric seas are usually associated with the marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 transgressions

Transgression (geology)

A marine transgression is a geologic event during which sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, resulting in flooding. Transgressions can be caused either by the land sinking or the ocean basins filling with water...

 of the geologic

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 past, which have variously been due to either global eustatic sea level

Sea level

Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

 changes, local tectonic

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...

 deformation, or both, and are occasionally semi-cyclic. They can be warm or cold; several were present at the end of the last Ice Age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

, when sea level rose more rapidly than some areas could isostatically

Isostasy

Isostasy is a term used in geology to refer to the state of gravitational equilibrium between the earth's lithosphere and asthenosphere such that the tectonic plates "float" at an elevation which depends on their thickness and density. This concept is invoked to explain how different topographic...

 adjust. Modern examples are the Java Sea in Indonesia, Persian Gulf, the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

, and Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...

.

Examples

• Champlain Sea
  Champlain Sea
  The Champlain Sea was a temporary inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, a paratropical subsea or epeiric sea created by the retreating glaciers during the close of the last ice age...
  
  
• Sundance Sea
  Sundance Sea
  The Sundance Sea was an epeiric sea that existed in North America during the mid to late Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. It was an arm of what is now the Arctic Ocean, and extended through what is now western Canada into the central western United States...
  
  
• Turgai Sea
  Turgai Sea
  The Turgai Sea or Turgai Strait, also known as the West Siberian Sea, was a large shallow body of salt water of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras...
  
  
• Tyrrell Sea
  Tyrrell Sea
  The Tyrrell Sea, named for Canadian geologist Joseph Tyrrell, is another name for prehistoric Hudson Bay, namely as it existed during the retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet....
  
  
• Western Interior Seaway
  Western Interior Seaway
  The Western Interior Seaway, also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, and the North American Inland Sea, was a huge inland sea that split the continent of North America into two halves, Laramidia and Appalachia, during most of the mid- and late-Cretaceous Period...
  
  
• Zechstein Sea
  Zechstein
  The Zechstein is a unit of sedimentary rock layers of Middle to Late Permian age located in the European Permian Basin which stretches from the east coast of England to northern Poland...