The first storms and storm surge are behind us and here at home we were fortunate that everything stayed intact. Just a lid of the rain water barrels and the cover for our grill had taken to flight - but were later found in the ditch! On days like this there are always plenty of people about to watch the spectacle of a flood and the roaring sea. Thus, the monthly editorial solely refers to our very rough and gray North Sea! I hope this article makes you want to se(a) more and perhaps even poses the odd moment of - Well, I never...-!

Have fun with facts and figures Topic North Sea!!

Geography

The North Sea is an epeiric (or \"shelf\") sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. It is more than 970 kilometres (600 mi) long and 580 kilometres (360 mi) wide, with an area of around 750,000 square kilometres (290,000 sq mi). The North Sea is bounded by the Orkney Islands and east coasts of England and Scotland to the west and the northern and central European mainland to the east and south, including Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. 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. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, which lies in the very north-eastern part of the Atlantic.

Geology
Emergence
Shallow epicontinental seas like the current North Sea have existed on the European continental shelf for a very long time. The rifting that formed the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, from about 150 million years ago, caused tectonic uplift in the British Isles. Since then, a shallow sea has almost continuously existed between the highs of the Fennoscandian Shield and the British Isles.This precursor of the current North Sea has grown and shrunk with the rise and fall of the eustatic sea level during geologic time. Sometimes it was connected with other shallow seas, such as the sea above the Paris Basin to the south-west, the Paratethys Sea to the south-east, or the Tethys Ocean to the south.

During the Late Cretaceous, about 85 million years ago, all of modern mainland Europe except for Scandinavia was a scattering of islands. By the Early Oligocene, 34 to 28 million years ago, the emergence of Western and Central Europe had almost completely separated the North Sea from the Tethys Ocean, which gradually shrank to become the Mediterranean as Southern Europe and South West Asia became dry land. The North Sea was cut off from the English Channel by a narrow land bridge until that was breached by at least two catastrophic floods between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago.

Since the start of the Quaternary period about 2.6 million years ago, the eustatic sea level has fallen during each glacial period and then risen again. Every time the ice sheet reached its greatest extent, the North Sea became almost completely dry. The present-day coastline formed after the Last Glacial Maximum when the sea began to flood the European continental shelf.In 2006 a bone fragment was found while drilling for oil in the north sea. Analysis indicated that it was a Plateosaurus from 199 to 216 million years ago. This was the deepest dinosaur fossil ever found and the first find for Norway.

The Wadden Sea National Parkfounded in 1986 and encompasses the East Frisian islands, tidal flats and between Seemarschen Dollard on the border with the Netherlands in the west and to the outside in Cuxhaven Elbe shipping channel east. The National Park is approximately 345 800 ha in size. [1] The National Park administration is located in Wilhelmshaven. Since June 2009 the National Park of Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park along with the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea and the Dutch Wadden Sea is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ecology

To be protected habitats of this park include the watt, sand banks, salt marshes, beaches, dunes and estuaries in the North Sea. Particular attention is this the typical for the Wadden Sea fauna and flora.

The coast of the North Sea is unusually flat. The seabed is partly from a few centimeters per kilometer. Twice a day the tide carries sand, clay and silt in the area of ​​the Wadden Sea. Dunes characterize the coastline, which builds the wind out of the fine grains of sand from the exposed watts.

The Wadden Sea is to the tropical rain forest ecosystem, the second most prolific - only that it exceeds the Wadden Sea in living biomass. The Wadden Sea-to-find life forms include diatoms, snails, worms, mussels and prawns. A typical inhabitant of sandy Watts Watts is the worm that lives in a U-shaped pipe under the surface watts.

Up to 4,000 animal and plant species are specialized in the unusual food-rich habitat of the Wadden Sea. For example, geese live fire from the tidal snails, which are found in hundreds of thousands on the mudflat surface. The 180,000 birds counted northwestern European Shelduck population also spends its moulting period between July and September in the Wadden Sea. Also, about 200,000 eider ducks spend their molting season, about 1,000 pairs of eiders use the mudflats of the North Sea as a breeding area. Most of them breed on the island Amrum.

At the same time, the Wadden Sea staging area for breeding birds Nordic countries, the nibble here, the fat reserves they need for successful breeding. How to find herself in the Wadden Sea about 10-12 million waders, geese, ducks and gulls.

On the sandbanks in the Wadden Sea seals are observed and are adjacent to the Wadden Sea salt marshes, sandy beaches and dunes. On the salt marshes that serve as the avocets and terns nesting area, blooms in summer, the beach and the beach thistle lilac. Typical plant of the dunes is the ordinary beach grass, which fastens with its extensive root system of the dunes.