Geography

The Levantine Sea is bordered by Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 in the north, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and the Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip

thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...

 in the east, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

 in the south, and the Aegean Sea

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

 in the northwest. The western border to the open Mediterranean (there also called Libyan Sea

Libyan Sea

The Libyan Sea is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the African coast of ancient Libya, i.e. Cyrenaica and Marmarica...

) is defined as a line from the cape Ra's al-Hilal in Libya to the island of Gavdos

Gavdos

Gavdos is the southernmost Greek island, located to the south of its much bigger neighbour, Crete, of which it is administratively a part, in the peripheral unit of Chania. It forms a community with surrounding islets and was part of the former Selino Province. It is the southernmost point of...

, south of Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. The largest island in the Levantine Sea is Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

. The greatest depth of 4384 meters is found in the Pliny Trench, about 80 km south of Crete. The Levantine Sea stretches over an area of 320,000 km.

The northern part of the Levantine Sea between Cyprus and Turkey is called Cilician Sea. Also in the north are the large bays Gulf of İskenderun

Gulf of Iskenderun

The Gulf of İskenderun is a gulf or inlet of the Levantine Sea, the easternmost part of Mediterranean Sea, of which it forms the easternmost tip, on the southern coast of Turkey near its border with Syria. It also contains the northernmost point of the Levantine Sea...

 (northeast) and Gulf of Antalya

Gulf of Antalya

The Gulf of Antalya is a large bay of the northern Levantine Sea, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea south of Antalya province, Turkey. It includes some of the main seaside resorts of Turkey, also known as the "Turkish riviera"....

 (northwest).

The Leviathan gas field

Leviathan gas field

The Leviathan gas field is a large natural gas field located in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel, discovered in June 2010. The gas field is located roughly west of Haifa in waters deep in the Levantine basin, a rich hydrocarbon area in one of the world’s larger offshore gas finds of...

 is located in this area under the Levantine basin.

Ecology

The Suez Canal

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

 was completed in 1869, linking the Levantine Sea to the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

. The Red Sea is higher than the Eastern Mediterranean, so the canal serves as a tidal strait that pours Red Sea water into the Mediterranean. The Bitter Lakes, which are hypersaline natural lakes that form part of the canal, blocked the migration of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean for many decades, but as the salinity of the lakes gradually equalized with that of the Red Sea, the barrier to migration was removed, and plants and animals from the Red Sea have begun to colonize the eastern Mediterranean. This migration of species is known as the Lessepsian migration, after Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps, GCSI was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduced sailing distances and times between the West and the East.He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a sea-level...

, the chief engineer of the canal.

Construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in the 1960s has reduced the flow of freshwater and silt into the Levantine Sea. This made the sea relatively saltier and nutrient-poor than previously, which led to the collapse of historically important sardine

Sardine

Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....

fisheries, and has given an additional advantage to Red Sea species, who are adapted to the saltier and nutrient-poor Red Sea.

Further reading

• Özsoy, E. and H. Güngör (1993). The Northern Levantine Sea Circulation Based on Combined Analysis of CTD and ADCP Data, In: P. Brasseur (editor), Data Assimilation: Tools for Modelling the Ocean in a Global Change Perspective, NATO ASI Seeries, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.

• Sur, H. İ., Özsoy, E., and Ü. Ünlüata, (1992). Simultaneous Deep and Intermediate Depth Convection in the Northern Levantine Sea, Winter 1992, Ocean.

External links

Study and Analysis of Water Masses Formation in the Levantine Sea