Talk:Marginal sea
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Now that we have marginal seas for three oceans, a question:
Is the Caribbean regarded as a marginal sea?
- It is not a marginal sea because it is a part of the American Mediterranean Sea. See mediterranean sea for detail. - TAKASUGI Shinji 12:54, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
Now that we have marginal seas for three oceans, a question:
Is the Caribbean regarded as a marginal sea?
- It is not a marginal sea because it is a part of the American Mediterranean Sea. See mediterranean sea for detail. - TAKASUGI Shinji 12:54, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
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- Apparently there is no article for mediterranean seas as a feature of physical geography, instead it redirects to the Mediterranean Sea. --Big Adamsky 15:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
There is an article for mediterranean seas as a feature of physical geography. Just go to Mediterranean sea (common "s", not capital "S" - otherwise you will get the article on The Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Africa). Thus, as has been pointed out before, the Caribbean is not a marginal sea, because it is part of the American mediterrean sea.72.27.107.50 22:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] mediterranean sea as marginal sea
Following is a definition of mediterranean seas which includes them within the definition of marginal seas: “Mediterranean seas are a special class of marginal seas, which are defined as those parts of the World Ocean that are separated from the major deep ocean basins by topographic features such as islands or bay-like coastline configurations. Examples of marginal seas are some of the major shelf regions, e.g. the North Sea or the East China Sea, and topographically semi-enclosed ocean regions, e.g. the Tasman Sea or the Bay of Bengal. While the circulation and stratification in these marginal seas may be strongly modified by thermohaline or tidal forcing it is still dominated by the wind. Mediterranean seas are the only marginal seas where thermohaline forcing dominates.” Regional Oceanography: an Introduction Tomczak, Matthias & J Stuart Godfrey 2nd edn (2003) [1] (pdf pg 2 of 22 depicting page 84 of printed textbook)
The same website http://www.es.flinders.edu.au/~mattom/index2.html links to another oceanography text online that agrees with the presentation of mediterranean seas as being distinct from all marginal seas. “Mediterranean Seas are mostly surrounded by land. By this definition,the Arctic and Caribbean Seas are both Mediterranean Seas, the Arctic Mediterranean and the Caribbean Mediterranean. Marginal Seas are defined by only an indentation in the coast. The Arabian Sea and South China Sea are marginal seas.” Introduction To Physical Oceanography Robert H. Stewart Department of Oceanography Texas A & M University Copyright 2006 September 2006 Edition [2] (pdf pg 31 depicting pg 23 of printed textbook ****NB: 9+MB.pdf: hispeed connection recommended)
More importantly, there are numerous internet examples of the term marginal sea being applied to individual seas recognized as mediterranean seas. I will cite them (or one can do a search on 'marginal sea') only if necessary.
I don't think the situation is ambiguous with different author(itie)s having different definitions. I think it's a common human process when one special subset arises among a set of things, that the term for the whole set 'drifts' away from the special case (which now has its own 'special' name) and becomes associated only to the non-special case (e.g., even if we know better, there is tendency to think of a square and a rectangle as two different things; when considered singularly, it's difficult to think of the thumb as a finger). However, I think technically, correctly, and commonly, mediterranean seas are regarded as marginal seas, and should be presented in Wikipedia as such (while, perhaps more importantly, elaborating on their special features).
Especially if there is no response to the contrary, I would like to eventually change this article to be in accord with the idea of mediterranean seas being special cases of marginal seas. Jauntymcd 14:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
