The Bellingshausen Sea is an area along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, west of Alexander Island, east of Cape Flying Fish on Thurston Island, and south of Peter I Island (there the southern Vostokkysten). In the south are, from west to east, Eights Coast, Bryan Coast and English Coast (west part) of West Antarctica. To the west of Cape Flying Fish joins Amundsen Sea.
Bellingshausen Sea has an area of 487,000 km2 (188,000 sq mi) and reaches a maximum depth of 4,470 meters (14,670 ft).
It takes its name from Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen, who explored in the area in 1821.
In the late Pliocene Epoch, about 2.15 million years ago, the Eltanin asteroid impacted here. This is the only known impact in a deep-ocean basin in the world.
Famous quotes containing the word sea:
“What do the botanists know? Our lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye may see for the hand, but not for the mind. We are still being born, and have as yet but a dim vision of sea and land, sun, moon, and stars, and shall not see clearly till after nine days at least.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)