Timor Sea - Geography

Geography

The waters to the east are known as the Arafura Sea. The Timor Sea is adjacent to three substantial inlets on the north Australian coast, the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Beagle Gulf and the Van Diemen Gulf. The Australian city of Darwin is the only large city to adjoin the sea. The small town of Wyndham is located on the west arm of Cambridge Gulf, an inlet of Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.

Rivers that enter the Timor Sea from the Northern Territory include Fish River, King River, Dry River, Victoria River and the Alligator Rivers. Rivers in the Kimberley region that flow into the Timor Sea include the Ord River, Forrest River, Pentecost River and Durack River.

The sea is about 480 km (300 statute miles) wide, covering an area of about 610,000 km². (235,000 square miles). Its deepest point is the Timor Trough (which some geologists consider is the south-eastern extension of the Java Trench, but others view as a foreland trough to the Timor Island "mountain range"), located in the northern part of the sea, which reaches a depth of 3,300 m (10,800 ft). The remainder of the sea is much shallower, much of it averaging less than 200 m (650 ft) deep, as it overlies the Sahul Shelf, part of the Australian continental shelf.

The Big Bank Shoals is an area on the sloping seabed between the continental shelf and the Timor Trough where a number of submerged banks are located. The ecosystem of the shoals is significantly different to the deeper waters surrounding them. In May 2010, it was announced that a crater about 50 km wide has been discovered on the seabed of the Timor Sea.