scholarly journals The configuration of the Pontus Euxinus in Ptolemy's Geography

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Dmitry A. Shcheglov
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Open Sea ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
Constituent Elements

Abstract. This article aims to explain how Ptolemy could have constructed a map of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea), as described in his Geography, under the assumption that his sources were similar to those that have come down to us. The method employed is based on the comparison of Ptolemy's data with corresponding information from other ancient sources, revealing the most conspicuous similarities and differences between them. Three types of information are considered as possible “constituent elements” of Ptolemy's map: latitudes, coastline lengths, and straight-line distances. It is argued that the latitudes Ptolemy used for the key points determining the overall shape of the Pontus (Byzantium, Trapezus, the mouth of the Borysthenes and the Cimmerian Bosporus, the mouth of the Tanais, etc.) were most likely inherited from earlier geographers (Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Marinus). In exactly the same way, Ptolemy's data on the circumference of the Pontus and the length of the coastal stretches between the key points (from the Thracian Bosporus to Cape Karambis, Sinope, Trapezus, and the mouth of the Phasis, etc.) closely correlate with the corresponding estimates reported by other geographers (Eratosthenes, Artemidorus, Strabo, Pliny, Arrian, and Pseudo-Arrian), which implies that Ptolemy drew on similar coastline length information. The shortening of Ptolemy's west coast of the Pontus (from the Thracian Bosporus to the mouth of the Borysthenes) relative to the corresponding distances reported by other sources is explained by his underestimation of the circumference of the Earth. The lengthening of Ptolemy's north-east Pontus coast (from the Cimmerian Bosporus to the mouth of the Phasis) can, in part, be accounted for by his attempt to incorporate the straight-line distances across the open sea reported by Pliny. Overall, Ptolemy's configuration of the Black Sea can be satisfactorily explained as a result of fitting contradictory pieces of information together that were inherited from earlier geographical traditions.

scholarly journals Sponge community of the western Black Sea shallow water caves: diversity and spatial distribution

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Ereskovsky ◽  
Oleg A. Kovtun ◽  
Konstantin K. Pronin ◽  
Apostol Apostolov ◽  
Dirk Erpenbeck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Composition ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
Open Sea ◽  
Sponge Diversity ◽  
Morphological And Molecular Data ◽  
Species Composition And Distribution ◽  
First Time

Marine caves possess unique biocoenotic and ecological characteristics. Sessile benthic species such as sponges associated with cave habitats typically show a marked zonation from the cave entrance towards the end of the cave. We describe three semi-submerged karstic caves of 50 to 83 m length and 936 to 2,291 m3volume from the poorly explored cavernicolous fauna of North-East Bulgaria. We surveyed sponge diversity and spatial variability. Eight demosponge species were identified based on morphological and molecular data, of which six are known from the adjacent open sea waters of the Black Sea. Two species,Protosuberites denhartogivan Soest & de Kluijver, 2003 andHalichondria bowerbankiBurton, 1930, are reported from the Black Sea for the first time. The spatial sponge distribution inside the caves is in general similar, but shows some differences in species composition and distribution depending on cave relief and hydrodynamics. The species composition of sponges of Bulgarian caves is found to be different from Crimean caves. An updated checklist of the Black Sea sponges is provided.

scholarly journals The Black Sea in Ptolemy’s Geography: from measuring latitudes and distances to creating a map

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
D. A. Shcheglov
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
West Coast ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contradictory Information ◽  
Key Points

The configuration of the Black Sea in Ptolemy’s Geography is compared with the information of other ancient geographers. It is demonstrated that their data on the length of the coastlines between the key points match with high accuracy, implying that they drew on similar sources. A possible explanation of numerous disagreements between their data on distances between neighbouring coastal points is suggested. It is shown that the shortening of the west coast of the Black Sea in Ptolemy’s Geography relative to the reports of other geographers was due to his erroneous value of the circumference of the Earth. In general, Ptolemy’s configuration of the Black Sea is explained as a result of merging together contradictory information on the length of coastlines and the latitudes of the key points provided by his sources. These findings contribute to a better understanding of Ptolemy’s method of map-making.

scholarly journals Control of the geomorphology and gas hydrate extent on widespread gas emissions offshore Romania

2017 ◽  
Vol 188 (4) ◽  
pp. 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Riboulot ◽  
Antonio Cattaneo ◽  
Carla Scalabrin ◽  
Arnaud Gaillot ◽  
Gwénaël Jouet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Column ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Gas Hydrate ◽  
Accumulation Rate ◽  
Sediment Accumulation ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
Bottom Simulating Reflectors ◽  
Gas Flares ◽  
Sea Fan

The Romanian sector of the Black Sea deserves attention because the Danube deep-sea fan is one of the largest sediment depositional systems worldwide and is considered the world's most isolated sea, the largest anoxic water body on the planet and a unique energy-rich sea. Due to the high sediment accumulation rate, presence of organic matter and anoxic conditions, the Black sea sediments offshore the Danube delta is rich in gas and thus shows Bottom Simulating Reflectors (BSR). The cartography of the BSR over the last 20 years, exhibits its widespread occurrence, indicative of extensive development of hydrate accumulations and a huge gas hydrate potential. By combining old and new datasets acquired in 2015 during the GHASS expedition, we performed a geomorphological analysis of the continental slope north-east of the Danube canyon compared with the spatial distribution of gas seeps in the water column and the predicted extent of the gas hydrate stability zone. This analysis provides new evidence of the role of geomorphological setting and gas hydrate extent in controlling the location of the observed gas expulsions and gas flares in the water column. Gas flares are today considered an important source of the carbon budget of the oceans and, potentially, of the atmosphere.

scholarly journals Hans Werner Lissmann, 30 April 1909 - 21 April 1995

1996 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 235-245
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Family ◽  
Northern Shore ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Village ◽  
First World

Hans Lissmann overcame extraordinary difficulties to become one of the pioneers of experiments on animal locomotion and the discoverer of the electric sense of fishes. The Russian Empire He was born on 30 April 1909 at Nikolayev, a Black Sea port near Odessa. Most of what we know of his early life comes from two typewritten memoirs, written in 1944 when he was interned. He was the younger of the two sons of German parents, Robert Lissmann, an exporter of grain, and his wife Ebba. A photograph taken in 1913 or 1914 shows a prosperous family formally posed with the boys dressed immaculately and impractically, entirely in white. Until Hans was five the family lived in Nikolayev and in Novorossiysk, another port on the northern shore of the Black Sea. He spoke Russian with his parents and French with his grandparents. Then, after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the family was sent to Kargala, a village near Orenburg on the edge of the Urals, 1100 miles north-east of Nikolayev. There they were interned as aliens among a population of Tartars, Bashkirs and Kirghis. Hans learned some Tartar, and was also taught German. Drawings that he made there show a village of log buildings inhabited by men in turbans, and a rider on a Bactrian camel. Their mother taught the boys arithmetic and languages, and arranged for them to be introduced to biology by an interned zoologist and a botanist who took them into the surrounding countryside on summer afternoons. She supported the family by teaching in the village school when her husband was arrested and taken away for several months. The Russian Revolution came, and Kargala was captured and recaptured several times by the Reds and Whites.

The Baron de Baye's Antiquities from North-east Russia and Siberia

1923 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-60
Author(s):  
Ellis H. Minns
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
East Russia ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Northern Russia ◽  
Sea Coast ◽  
West European

The archaeology of the Black Sea coast quickly attracted attention when the Russians conquered the Crimea at the end of the eighteenth century, and the Scythic barrows of the Steppes began to be carefully excavated almost as soon; but it was not till the fifties and sixties that the less imposing antiquities of northern Russia found any one to study them even among Russians. West European interest naturally came later, the pioneers were first the Finn Aspelin in the seventies and next the Baron de Baye, who about 1890 sought to throw light from the East upon the Merovingian and other Teutonic styles which were his special province.

scholarly journals Chandler wobble excitation by catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Spada ◽  
L. Alfonsi ◽  
E. Boschi
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Chandler Wobble ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
Quaternary Glaciation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Geophysical Processes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Seismic Moment Release

It is now widely accepted that during the late Quaternary glaciation the Black Sea formed an isolated inland lake (Ross et al., 1970). New geological data and the recognition of sudden population movements away from the Black Sea coasts suggest that the basin was rapidly flooded through the Bosphorus sill 7150 years bp, causing a sea level rise of ~ 135 m in a few years (Ryan et al., 1997). As shown here, such a catastrophic redistribution of mass has significantly altered the amplitude of the Chandler wobble, the free motion of the pole of rotation around the main inertia axis of the Earth (Lambeck, 1980). We also estimate that during the flooding the pole of rotation was diverted from its secular path and shifted by ~ 30 m, at a rate of several meters per year. These rotational variations are found to be orders of magnitude larger than those produced by other short-term geophysical processes, such as earthquakes seismic moment release (O'Connell and Dziewonski, 1979; Chao et al.,1996), anthropogenic water impoundment (Chao, 1995), and tectonic mass movements (Alfonsi and Spada, 1998). The Black Sea flooding may thus be responsible for the most drastic change in the rotational parameters of the Earth in the recent history of our planet.

scholarly journals The spatial pattern of selected extreme precipitation indices for Turkey (1975-2012)

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Faize Sarış
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Precipitation Extremes ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The South ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Rainy Days

AbstractThis paper analyses extreme precipitation characteristics of Turkey based on selected WMO climate change indices. The indices – monthly total rainy days (RDays); monthly maximum 1-day precipitation (Rx1day); simple precipitation intensity index (SDII); and monthly count of days when total precipitation (represented by PRCP) exceeds 10 mm (R10mm) – were calculated for 98 stations for the 38-year overlapping period (1975–2012). Cluster analysis was applied to evaluate the spatial characterisation of the annual precipitation extremes. Four extreme precipitation clusters were detected. Cluster 1 corresponds spatially to Central and Eastern Anatolia and is identified with the lowest values of the indices, except rainy days. Cluster 2 is concentrated mainly on the west and south of Anatolia, and especially the coastal zone, and can be characterised with the lowest rainy days, and high and moderate values of other indices. These two clusters are the most prominent classes throughout the country, and include a total of 82 stations. Cluster 3 is clearly located in the Black Sea coastal zone in the north, and has high and moderate index values. Two stations on the north-east coast of the Black Sea region are identified as Cluster 4, which exhibits the highest values among all indices. The overall results reveal that winter months and October have the highest proportion of precipitation extremes in Turkey. The north-east part of the Black Sea region and Mediterranean coastal area from the south-west to the south-east are prone to frequent extreme precipitation events.

scholarly journals Black Sea Baric Depression

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Ion Isaia
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Atmospheric Pressure ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
East Side ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Synoptic Conditions ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
High Atmospheric Pressure

Abstract This work is meant to demonstrate that, in the special synoptic conditions, on the surface of the Black Sea, a baric depression is being formed. This depression is formed when the Black Sea's water temperature is higher than the surrounding continental ground's temperature. There are situations when the baric depression of the Black Sea occurs because of the consequences of the movement of another baric depression from the east of the Mediterranean Sea to its north-east side. Due to the high atmospheric pressure of the continental zone that's surrounding the Black Sea, the baric depression will get a retrograde movement, towards the north or northwest. Eventually, this depression occludes in the eastern continental zone of Europe or even near the Baltic Sea. During a retrograde movement of a baric depression, the atmospheric precipitations will fall in big quantities, in many situations, causing floods.

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