Seeking Certain Seaside Settings Quiz

Answer: the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia

On January 13, 2012, the cruise ship "Costa Concordia" heeled over to starboard and partially sank in the Tyrrhenian Sea upon striking an underwater rock and shelf off the western Italian coast near Isola del Giglio. Thirty-two people were killed, and the ship was declared a total loss. An $800-million salvage operation was undertaken to remove the ship. It was righted in September, 2013, in preparation for towing to a yard for disassembly.

Named for an Etruscan prince, the Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the larger Mediterranean Sea and extends down the front part of the "leg" of western Italy, from the "thigh" through the instep of the "boot." It is bounded by the Ligurian Sea to the north, the islands of Corsica and Sardinia to the west, and the island of Sicily to the south.

Answer: San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is the most famous among many geological faults in the U.S. state of California. Extending for over 1,300 km north-south through the state, the Fault forms the tectonic border between the Pacific and North American Plates. The San Andreas Fault has produced a number of notable earthquakes, including the 1906 and 1989 quakes that battered northern California generally and the San Francisco area specifically.

The Salton Sea is located in Southern California near its borders with the state of Arizona and the country of Mexico. It was created in 1905 during a flood of the Colorado River, but the periodic flooding which fed the Sea was effectively stopped by the completion of the Hoover Dam in 1935. The Salton Sea has no outlet; and its increasing salinity (more salty than the Pacific Ocean, but not quite as salty as Utah's Great Salt Lake) makes it increasingly harder for it to support aquatic life. Massive fish dieoffs have occurred, and much of the area is noted for its offensive smell. The Sea supported the creation of some resort communities such as Bombay Beach, but many of these places have all but disappeared as the shape and toxicity of the Sea have fluctuated.

Answer: Anglesey

Anglesey is the largest island in Wales, and the largest island in the Irish Sea. Holyhead is located on the smaller Holy Island, which is connected to Anglesey by the Stanley Embankment, known as "The Cob." The sailing connection between Holyhead and Ireland has been ongoing for 4,000 years. A major port, Holyhead is the eastern terminus of a variety of ferries that form the primary surface link between Ireland, central England and Wales. Numerous train lines then connect Holyhead to the rest of Wales and England.

The Irish Sea, sometimes called the Manx Sea, separates the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the North Channel, and to the Celtic Sea by St. George's Channel. The Isle of Man (a British Crown Dependency) is the next largest island in the Irish Sea after Anglesey. The largest cities that touch the Irish Sea are Dublin, Republic of Ireland; Liverpool, England; and Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Answer: Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands, the most populous, and plays a significant part in Greek economics and culture. The Minoan civilization of Crete is the earliest European civilization for which there is a record. Surprisingly, a series of high mountain ranges runs the width of this rectangular island. Crete's mountains contain several gorges, noted for the challenges they pose to hikers and for their natural beauty. The Samaria Gorge is part of a Greek National Park and World Biosphere Reserve; the Richtis Gorge contains a picturesque waterfall of the same name; the Imbros Gorge was the site of the evacuation of British soldiers from Crete to Egypt during World War II; and the Ha Gorge is one of the wildest and most difficult gorges on Crete to cross, almost inaccessible to people.

Home at one time to the ancient Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, the Aegean Sea has been the object and location of war, off and on, for thousands of years. The Aegean is home to many different types of aquatic life and has taken a heavy hit in terms of pollution in modern times; but recovery efforts are being successfully conducted throughout the area.

Answer: a system of circular ocean currents

Containing billions of pieces of plastic trash - some weighing less than a paper clip - the North Atlantic Garbage Patch is a huge, dense mass of refuse hundreds of kilometers wide that circulates as much as 1,600 kilometers north-south seasonally in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Comparable to, although much smaller than a similar mass in the Pacific Ocean, the Patch is caused and held in the North Atlantic by the confluence of four currents: the North Atlantic Current to the north, the Canary Current to the east, the North Atlantic Equatorial Current to the south, and the Gulf Stream to the west.

Answer: Baja California Peninsula

The Baja California Peninsula is located in northwest Mexico. Over 1,200 km long with a width that ranges from 40 to 320 km, it contains four deserts, seven mountain ranges, three capes, four bays, and over sixty islands. Known for its temperate climate, it offers deep-sea fishing, eco tourism, and posh resorts.

The Sea of Cortez separates the mainland of Mexico from the Baja California Peninsula. This body of water is home to a large diversity of animal life including seals, whales, sharks and numerous invertebrates. The whole body of water is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is protected as such.

Answer: Sakhalin Island

Sakhalin Island is located off the eastern coast of Russia, west of the Sea of Okhotsk, and just north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Over the course of its history the island has been claimed by both Russia and Japan, but at the end of World War II it was returned to Russia. Sakhalin was the location of the 1983 attack on Korean Airlines Flight 007 by Soviet air defenses when the airliner overflew it.

The Sea of Okhotsk was discovered in the 1640s by the explorers Moskvitin and Poyarkov. In the nineteenth century, the Sea was the site of whaling operations; during the Cold War, the Soviet Navy used it for nuclear submarine maneuvers; and since the late twentieth century, the Sea has become the focus of oil and gas exploration.

Answer: Weddell Sea

The Halley (UK), Rothera (UK), and Palmer (USA) are Antarctic research stations that ring the Antarctic's Weddell Sea. Britain's Halley Station studies the Earth's atmosphere and developed the data that revealed the hole in the Earth's ozone layer in 1985. Its Rothera Station serves as the capital of the British Antarctic Territory and contains a logistics center, laboratories, air strip, fuel storage, and wharf. The United States' Palmer station focuses on marine biology, but also monitors seismic, atmospheric, ultraviolet radiation, and heliospheric phenomena.

Called "the most treacherous and dismal region on earth," and named for a Scottish sailor who surveyed it in 1823, the Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean. It is bounded primarily by territories in Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula and Coats Land. The Sea is on the side of Antarctica nearest to the tip of South America; and, not surprisingly, the Sea falls within territorial claims disputed by Argentina, Great Britain, and Chile. The Weddell Sea has the clearest water of any sea, confirmed to be equal to that of distilled water, and is the habitat of the Weddell Seal.

Answer: Townsville

Townsville was named for Robert Towns, a Sydney businessman who provided early financial support for the city and whose employees found its location. The growth of the Australian cattle industry in the 1860s brought on the need for an outlet on the east coast of Queensland that would not be subject to the irregular flooding of the Burdekin River. A location for the settlement north of the Burdekin was scouted, and an area featuring the sheltered Cleveland Bay and overlooked by Castle Hill was selected. The original Townsville port area on Ross Creek survives today; and the Ross River flows through the city.

As the region's goldfields, sugar, and cattle industries flourished, so did Townsville. Today, Townsville continues as a key port city but it is also a center for government, education, and industry, all of it enhanced by its location on the Coral Sea and opposite the midsection of the Great Barrier Reef.

Answer: Africa

Siwa is an oasis in the Egyptian segment of the Great Sand Sea, one of the largest dune fields in the world. The Siwa Oasis was settled as far back as 10,000 BC and even now is one of Egypt's most isolated places, located over 500 km from Cairo. Its inhabitants, known as Siwi, are of Berber origin. The oasis is an area of 1,600 sq km with a population of 23,000. Dates and olives are grown in the area; handcrafting of baskets, silver, and pottery is important as well; but tourism and adventure trekking is an ever-growing part of the local economy.

The Great Sand Sea and the Calanshio and Ribiana Sand Seas comprise a fourth of the Libyan Desert, which is itself part of the Sahara Desert, the world's largest desert outside of Arctic or Antarctic regions. Muslim and Tuareg traders had been crossing the Sahara in their caravans for centuries and were familiar with the sand seas. However, the Great Sand Sea was first documented by a European when German explorer Friedrich Rohlfs charted it in 1865. The sand seas offer vast panoramas of sand dunes, some of which are as long as 140 km and rise to heights of 512 meters.