Barents Sea

The Barents Sea (Russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More Norwegian: Barentshavet) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia with vast majority of it lying in Russian territorial waters. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz.

It is a rather shallow shelf sea, with an average depth of 230 metres (750 ft), and is an important site for both fishing and hydrocarbon exploration. The Barents Sea is bordered by the Kola Peninsula to the south, the shelf edge towards the Norwegian Sea to the west, and the archipelagos of Svalbard to the northwest, Franz Josef Land to the north east and Novaya Zemlya to the east. Novaya Zemlya, an extension of the northern part of the Ural Mountains, separates the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea.

Geography

The southern half of the Barents Sea, including the ports of Murmansk (Russia) and Vardø (Norway) remain ice-free year round due to the warm North Atlantic drift. In September, the entire Barents Sea is more or less completely ice-free. Until the Winter War (1939–40), Finland's territory also reached to the Barents Sea, with the harbor at Petsamo being Finland's only ice-free winter harbor.