Microscale Awareness

As a pilot my mind is trained to think a lot differently when compared to someone who drives a car. Ever since I was a boy I  learned to build spatial pictures in my mind that look like the view from a helicopter similar to what you might see in a movie or TV show.

When I was really young, 6, 7, 8 years old, my father would take me out to sea and we would work together to navigate using dead reckoning. The main concept is simple. If you don't reckon correctly, you're dead!

I learned to sail a course and hold it steady so the boat would end up where we planned. But most importantly I learned to take the pieces of data like the heading and speed and build a mental image of our position in space and then correlate that image to the two dimensional navigational chart onboard. I could take a mental flight from our tiny little boat and "fly" out into space above until I could imagine the little boat AND the coastline and our desired destination back at the safe harbor. Then I could mentally fly back down and look across the top of the ship's compass and imagine the harbor waiting for me just over the curving horizon where it lay out of view. I even understood that the true vector direction to the harbor was actually a straight line slightly down into the water.

BlogTheBlackSea is designed to take you on similar mental "flights" to the wonderful aspects of the Black Sea region. Part of it is geography. Looking at these fantastic GoogleEarth images that have only recently become available to everyman. We will also look deep into the cultures and economic conditions that make the Black Sea so vibrant.

But before we go on too many "flights" from a "high altitude" perspective and then zoom in on particular geographic features or cultural oddities, I want to encourage you to consider an additional simultaneous perspective. The view from the microbiotic reality of Planet Ocean.

Imagine that you are not just "flying" above the landscape, or seascape in the case of the Black Sea itself, but imagine that you are simultaneously flying within the microscape. The tiny world of micro organisms. For example, the Black Sea sometimes experiences huge algae blooms that are so large that they are visible from space. You can see algae blooms swirling around in the image above. Click on the image to zoom in and you will see both greenish algae blooms and brownish sediments dumped from rivers.

When I used to work as an Airline Captain in Hawaii I learned something very interesting about the scale of your vision. See when tourists come to Hawaii, they all arrive with their own preconceptions of "Paradise." They might have seen some pretty pictures in a travel brochure or seen a Babe-Watch episode or two. If you look at Hawaii from just the correct distance and at the optimal scale, it does look like paradise. You typically see the view from your hotel room and some palm trees about one hundred yards away and maybe a pretty landscape view of a corner of the island, for example the world-famous view of Diamond Head from Waikiki Beach.

But what I realized is that you have to be careful what scale you use for your investigation. If you look too close, you might see some trash thrown in the bushes or floating in the water just offshore from your fancy hotel. You might look at a fantastic view of the white sandy beaches and swoon with the natural beauty of the Hawaiian experience, but you also might notice some criminals stealing a tourist's backpack from their beachtowel if you look too close. Worst of all, you might take a leisurely romantic stroll along the beach at Waikiki and be enamored with the warm salty breeze, blue water and natural energy. But if you look too close you would notice the flesh-eating bacteria and pollution spewing out of the Ala Wai canal directly onto Waikiki Beach!!! 

Check out this video of E.O. Wilson, the famous biologist as he explains the need for us to become more aware of the diversity of life on Planet Ocean and the need to document it and preserve it.

As we continue our explorations of the Black Sea region in this blog you will be able to gain a more broad awareness of the true nature of reality of this magical region.

Enjoy the video and please subscribe and tell your friends.

Turkish Straits

The "Turkish Straits" are one of the most strategically important waterways in the world.

The order of importance is generally set by the amount of oil that is shipped through a particular area. Other shipping is also important but oil is the most critical factor.

This image shows the Sea of Marmara near the bottom of the Black Sea.

Here is the Bosporus Strait again.

Here is the Dardanelle

In this image you can see the entire length of the Sea of Marmara.

It would be difficult to explain the critical importance of this area of the world for the oil business, international shipping and international politics.

Just to give you an idea of how important this place is, consider that during a Military Style Strategic War Game exercise conducted at Harvard University in early 2008 to "simulate" a so-called "Oil Shockwave" event impacting the security of the United States, a simulated newsfeed supplying information to the panel of experts selected the Turkish Straits as the location for a simulated terrorist strike against international commerce. The news report begins by explaining that the event has occurred in the Sea of Marmara.

I think this is an excellent indicator of how important this area is, the fact that it was selected to be the key geographical and political focus point for a serious war games excercise.

You can check out this fascinating video here: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Multimedia-Center/All-Videos/OIL-SHOCKWAVE-An-Oil-Crisis-Simulation

The Turkish Straits are considered to be the 5th most important "oil chokepoint" in the world behind #1 Strait of Hormuz, #2 Malacca Strait, #3 Suez Canal, #4 Bab el Mandab Strait where the Red Sea connects to the Indian Ocean.

About 2.4 million barrels per day of the world's 87 million barrel per day demand are shipped through the Turkish Straits.

Dardanelle Strait

The Dardanelle Strait is where the Sea of Marmara links to the Mediterranean.

Click on the image to see more detail of the strait.

Sea of Marmara

In this image the Sea of Marmara is visible to the bottom right of the southwestern edge of the Black Sea.

Bosporus Strait

The Black Sea has only one outlet. It is the Bosporus Strait.

This image shows a close up view of the entire length of the Bosporus.

The Black Sea is at the top of the image.

The Sea of Marmara is at the bottom of the image.

If you click on the image you can zoom in and see other details like the City of Istanbul in Turkey and several bridges the span the Bosporus.

 You can also see the wakes from several ships in the upper part of the image as they navigate the strait into the Black.

The thing I find most interesting about the Bosporus is that the water is stratified. There is an upper layer and a lower layer. The upper layer is much less salty than the lower layer that gets it's salt from the Mediterranean.

The really weird thing is that the lower salty layer flows INTO the Black Sea and the upper less saline layer is where most of the water in the Black Sea flows out.

Kuban River

The Kuban river is about 523 miles long.

Click on the map to zoom in.

The Kuban starts on the north face of Mt. Elbruz, the highest mountain in Russia at 5642 meters/ 18,511 ft.

The Kuban then flows across beautiful plains on the north side of the Caucasus mountains in Krasnodar Province and empties into the Sea of Azov.

Check out this image of the Elbruz massif and the grazing area below.

A lot of the water from the Kuban is diverted for irrigation on the rich farmlands of Stavropol and Krasnodar.

The upper Kuban is a relatively quiet and little traveled area of the Black Sea region. No huge cities. No big tourist centers. Just natural beauty.

But farther down the Kuban is the city of Krasnodar with 640,000 people the 18th largest city in Russia.

In 1792 after the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1792, Tzarina Catherine II rewarded the Black Sea Cossacks with the lands around the Kuban. About 25,000 people moved from Ukraine to settle the area which at the time was largely uninhabited steppe.

The Kuban is extremely important because it drains such a vast area.

The Kuban river valley and the nearby areas are incredibly rich forests. More about the forests in a later post, right now we are just trying to figure out where all the water comes from to form the Black Sea.

By the way, please subscribe to this blog by using the subscription tool to the right. Thanks. Until next time......

Kerch Strait

The Kerch Strait connects the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

The Sea of Azov is really beautiful and has a lot of interesting features. We will revisit the Sea of Azov soon but today we will continue to focus on the question of where the water comes from to fill the Black Sea

In this image you can see the Crimean Peninsula sticking out into the Black Sea. The Kerch Strait lies between Crimea and the Russian mainland to the East.

Crimea looks sort of triangular with it's three prominent sections.

The city of Kerch is located on the far eastern point of Crimea on a cool bay on the Black Sea side.

The water from the Don river comes into the Sea of Azov on the top right and exits through the Kerch Strait.

In this close up of Crimea you can see the Kerch Strait at the bottom of the Sea of Azov.

There are some incredibly beautiful beaches on the inside of the Kerch Strait on the Sea of Azov on the Crimea side to the west of the strait. This is on the Ukraine side.

On the other side, the Russian Side, there are some neat marshes with lots of wildlife.

In this last image you can see the yellow border line between Ukraine on the left and Russia on the right.

Notice the interesting bays including the one on the left where the city of Kerch lies.

You can click on the image to get a closer view.

You can see the patterns of the fields under cultivation.

The Kerch Strait is some tricky water. Lots of swirling currents and cross-winds.

There were a few serious maritime incidents in the Kerch Strait this last winter including an oil spill and several ships that sank in a big storm. More on that later.

There are quite a few shipwrecks in this area.

From here the water swirls around in the Black Sea and eventually empties into the Mediterranean through the Bosporus Strait at the bottom left part of the Black Sea.

Next time we will explore more about the many interesting rivers that fill up the Black Sea.

Don River

Today we begin exploring where the water comes from to fill the Black Sea.

There are many rivers that flow into the Black. Some of them are hundreds of miles long and drain vast areas.

The biggest, longest and most important river flowing into the Black Sea is the Danube. We will explore the Danube in an upcoming blog.

First, we will start at the geographical "top" of the Black Sea.

To the North and East of the Crimean Peninsula is the Sea of Azov.

We will come back to explore more about the Sea of Azov, I promise.

At the far North-East corner of the Azov is where the Don River empties and supplies water to the Black Sea.

The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. The Don starts in an area slightly north of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, but farther east. This is south of Moscow.

The Don river flows about 1950 kilometers (1220 miles). The city of Rostov-on-Don is located on the river.

If you double click on the map image below and look carefully, you will see how the course of the Don River comes close to the course of the Volga River just to the east.

Guess what? There is actually a canal that connects the Don to the Volga! There is a large volume of inland waterway shipping that moves on both rivers.

You can also see how the Black Sea is connected to the Caspian by way of the Don, the Don-Volga Canal and the Volga. Amazing!

This means that cargo loaded in northern Iran can be shipped all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Don River is located all within Russia. But the Don has a major tributary called the Donets that flows from the Donetsk region of Ukraine and joins the Don in Russia not too far from the Sea of Azov.

There is a major controversy raging right now regarding the proposed addition of a second canal connecting the Don to the Volga. The canal would increase capacity between the two. But Kazakhstan has proposed a different "Eurasia Canal" route that would be much longer but would pass through a lower topography of the Kuma-Manych Canal area and therefore require fewer expensive "locks" to raise and lower ships. Stay tuned for more news on that one!

So, now we are starting to get a mental picture of where all that water comes from to fill the Black Sea.

Monimolimnion

Monimolimnion!

Is that a cool word or what?

Wow! It just makes your lips and tongue vibrate!

mon-ee-mo-LIM-nee-ohn

one-two-three-FOUR-five-six

This special word is closely related to another interesting word that is critical to help us understand the Black Sea. "Meromictic."

A meromictic body of water is one where the surface waters and the deep waters do not intermix. This situation is fairly rare because normally the wind causes surface waters to mix with deep waters which is called holomictic. But if the deep waters are significantly colder or a significant difference in salinity exists, the layers will not mix. In some meromictic lakes the mixing is known not to occur for years, or decades or maybe even centuries!

The Black Sea is very unusual compared to all other Seas. There are essentially two different worlds contained in the shallow and deep layers.

The "shallow" layer has been shown to extend down to about 200 meters in depth (600feet) on average.

Monimolimnionic refers to the deep layer that suffers from an acute lack of dissolved oxygen. Since the surface layer does not mix with the deeper layer, almost no oxygen is transported down deep.

The "mixolimnion" is the surface layer.

The meromictic monimolimnion in the Black Sea is more saline (high in salt) than the mixolimnion above because the Black Sea gets a constant flow of salty water from the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporous Strait.

And the mixolimnion gets a constant charge of fresh low-salinity water from the many rivers that empty into the Black Sea.

This results in the Black Sea having a very low salinity near the surface as compared to the open oceans of the Pacific or Atlantic or Southern Ocean.

Coming up soon in this blog we will explore the many fascinating rivers that flow into the Black Sea.

Step by step we will build up our mental picture of the structure and details that make the Black Sea so wonderful. And the details will help us to understand the many dynamic factors that collide together to generate the fractal, natural beauty of the Black.

Black Sea Regional Map

Pop Quiz! Did you remember the names of the countries that ring the Black Sea?

Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania.

You can click on the map to see a close up.

Notice how a few more countries are not on the shoreline, but not too far away. Armenia, Greece, Moldova. Even Iraq is just on the other side of Turkey. So is Cyprus, and Syria.

Where does the water in the Black Sea come from? How deep is it? What temperature is it? What is the salinity?

We are going to explore all these questions and more, much more.

The answers will amaze you. Are you starting to see the fractal nature of the Black Sea?

Abkhazia in the news

Abkhazia is located on the east side of the Black Sea.

Abkhazia is in the news lately.

Abkhazia is technically part of Georgia right now. But practically it is a "de facto" independent republic without international recognition. Very interesting ;-)

Things are quite dynamic in Georgia and Abkhazia.

International news reports recently carried video that allegedly shows a Russian Mig-29 aircraft shooting a missile at an un-manned Georgian Reconnaissance drone.

It is the formal position of this blog to remain politically neutral. We are just flying above the fractal boundary making observations. You can check out the video yourself and come to your own conclusions.

More on the situation in Abkhazia later. This is just an example of how "lively" the Black Sea region really is today.

Check out this "silhouette" image showing the location of Abkhazia relative to the Black Sea and Georgia.

The light green area is Georgia. The dark green area is Abkhazia with the red circle around it.

The Black Sea is shown in white in this image and the Caspian and the Med are also.

Did you know that the 2014 Winter Olympic games are scheduled to be held in the city of Sochi, Russian Federation??? Sochi is just up the coast from Ahbkazia.

Fractal boundaries. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Non-linear dynamics. The creative natural interface. The Black Sea generates a complex and mysterious fragrance.

Intro to Crimea

Crimea. In Russian it is called "Krym." Pronounced "cream."

What a magical place. The topography is stunning. A low area in the North connects Crimea to mainland Ukraine. And down in the South of Crimea there are huge rock cliffs that drop precipitously into the Black Sea about 4000 feet.

Crimea was long the playground of the Tsars. And even today it is traditional for Russians and Ukrainians to travel to Crimea to "have a rest." Soak in the sun. Breathe the fresh air blowing off the Black.

The center of Crimea holds the city of Simferopol, International Airport Identifier- SIP. Try putting that into your online flight reservations system!

Yalta is an amazing city with it's beautiful boardwalk along the sea and fine restaurants and even a few nightclubs and casinos.

Sevastopol is the famous home of the Russian Black Sea Navy. In Sevastopol there are more than 1800 various historical monuments including ancient greek ruins and World War 2 battlegrounds. More about the history of Sevastopol later....

Kerch is the city perched on the eastern edge of the Crimean Peninsula looking across the Kerch Strait to Russia.

Crimea is currently part of the country of Ukraine. But it was only recently so. Since 1954.

Most of the people in Crimea speak Russian, not Ukrainian and consider themselves Russian, not Ukrainian. More about the future of Crimea later....right now we are just getting to know the various points of interest and spatial relationships between the Black Sea and it's cities and rivers and so forth....

Black Sea Regional overview

Today we zoom out just a little to get a perspective on the entire Black Sea region.

The Black Sea lies near the center of this image with the Caspian Sea to the East (right) and the Mediterranean Sea to the South, below.

A little sliver of the blue of the Persian Gulf is visible in the very bottom right corner. And even a little Red Sea at bottom.

The Baltic Sea is visible near the upper left corner.

From this altitude the Sea of Azov looks like a lake to the North of the Black Sea. But the Sea of Azov is connected to the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait.

This image also gives you a perspective of the Crimean Penninsula that sticks down into the Black Sea from the North.

The Black Sea is connected to the Mediterranean and therefore the Atlantic Ocean by the Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelle Strait. More about these fascinating features later.....

Several major capital cities are visible. Moscow, the capital of Russia, to the north. And Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine between the Black Sea and Moscow. Ankara, the capital of Turkey, in the center of Turkey between the Med and the Black. Tehran, the capital of Iran is visible just south of the Caspian. 

For orientation purposes, due to the current international focus on the war in Iraq, Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, is near the center of the land area between the "5 blue jewels" of Black, Caspian, Persian Gulf, Red and Med. You can even pick out Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on the west shore of the Caspian.

Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, is just east and south of the Black Sea and Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is about due east from the Black.

Notice the greenish tinge to the lands to the North of the Black Sea. And to the south you can see the brownish deserts of Iraq, Syria, Jordan and so forth.

We are just getting oriented to the Black Sea region in order to expand our exploration soon into the cultures and economics and opportunities of the Black Sea's dynamics.

The Black Sea Clock

Here is a more regional image showing the Black Sea in the center and the Mediterranean Sea in the lower left. You can just see the edge of the Caspian Sea on the far right.

Are you ready to learn the names of the countries that "ring" the Black Sea?

Let's start at the "top." Things are always easier to remember if you organize them in your mind. Just imagine the Black Sea to be a clock, we will start at 12 o'clock. The first country is Ukraine.

Then as we go clockwise around the rim of the Black Sea.... we next get to .... Russia! About the 1 to 2 o'clock position.

Then as we go further around the rim, we get to Georgia. At least that is what it is called right now in May 2008. We will discuss Abkhazia later and the dynamic changes happening right now. The border between Russia and Georgia hits the Black Sea coast at about 2 o'clock and Georgia continues down to the border with Turkey at about 4 o'clock.

Turkey forms the lower margin of the Black Sea. The rich history of the Ottoman Empire almost defies comprehension. We will explore this fractal boundary also.

Then comes Bulgaria at about 8 o'clock and Romania at about 9 o'clock.

That's it. Have you got that straight? Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania.

6  magical, mysterious countries filled with fascinating people and customs and culture.

Next time we will explore more about the geography and get oriented to discuss the Black Sea news events. 

Black Sea Questions

The Black Sea. Its sorta round. Its sorta kidney shaped. What is that round "lake" on the North-East side? What about the little teeny "lake" down on the bottom-left of the image? Notice the "island" sticking out in the sea from the north side?

Can you name the countries that "ring" the Black Sea?

How big is it? How deep is it? How cold is it, or hot? Where does the water come from? Where does it go? What makes the Black Sea black?

What kind of people live there? What do they do? What do they believe? What do they look like?

The dynamics are amazing. The cultures and history are deep and alluring. The current events are cutting edge and strongly shaping the unfolding modern world.

The Black Sea region is largely ignored in the West. Nobody has a "Black Sea Bureau." The news about events in the Black Sea region is usually stuffed into "Eastern Europe."

We will go farther, and deeper. To the core of the mystery. To the fractal boundary where the dynamic elements create a new reality. I will be your guide. 

Blue Jewels

There it is! If you start from the center of Africa, the Black Sea is located to the north, a little to the east of center, and north of the Mediterranean Sea. When looking from space the Black Sea and the nearby bodies of water look almost like a necklace of blue jewels. The Persian Gulf looks almost like a lake because the Strait of Hormuz is so narrow. The Caspian Sea has a size and shape very similar to the Black as if some giant was playing a game and rotated the Black 45 degrees clockwise. Notice how the Caspian, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea all are "tilted" at the same 45 degree angle? But then the Med seems to push the Black in a purpose only known to the birds and the fish.

In the next post from this blog, we will zoom in on the Black Sea and explore the main geographical features. Once we get oriented we will open the door to explore the countries and cities and cultures and people of the magical Black Sea.

Opening Day

The Black Sea. This image shows the view from 6000km in space. How good is your geography? Can you point out which body of water is "Black?"

The Black Sea region is incredibly interesting. Squeezed between Europe to the West and Asia to the east. Not too far north of the "Middle East." The Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean are her neighbors.

Fasten your seat belts as we blast off on this exploration of the human dynamic of one of the most fascinating regions on Planet Ocean