An inland sea (also known as an epeiric sea or an epicontinental sea ) is a continental body of water which is very large in area and is either completely surrounded by dry land or connected to an ocean by a river , strait or " arm of the sea ". An inland sea will generally be brackish , with higher salinity than a freshwater lake but usually lower salinity than seawater . As with other seas, inland seas experience tides governed by the orbits of the Moon and Sun.
7-626: The Eromanga Sea was an inland sea across the Australian continent that formed in the Early Cretaceous . The sea extended from the Eromanga Basin northward to the Carpentarian Basin . Its southern extents comprised lagoons and rivers, and to the east it reached Surat Basin , a bay. The sea covered large parts of what is now Queensland and Central Australia at least four times during
14-419: A continent, not adjacent to it. The law of the sea does not apply to inland seas. In modern times, continents stand high, eustatic sea levels are low, and there are few inland seas. The Great Lakes , despite being completely fresh water , have been referred to as resembling or having characteristics like inland seas from a USGS management perspective. Lake Ontario is the only Great Lake connected to
21-440: Is "more or less" cut off from the ocean. It may be semi-enclosed, or connected to the ocean by a strait or "arm of the sea". An inland sea is distinguishable from a bay in that a bay is directly connected to the ocean. The term "epeiric sea" was coined by Joseph Barrell in 1917. He defined an epeiric sea as a shallow body of water whose bottom is within the wave base (e.g., where bottom sediments are no longer stirred by
28-492: Is complex and somewhat necessarily vague. The United States Hydrographic Office defined it as "a body of water nearly or completely surrounded by land, especially if very large or composed of salt water". Geologic engineers Heinrich Ries and Thomas L. Watson say an inland sea is merely a very large lake. Rydén, Migula, and Andersson and Deborah Sandler of the Environmental Law Institute add that an inland sea
35-577: The early Cretaceous . The present-day Winton Formation represents remnants of the river plains that filled the basin left by the Eromanga Sea. The formation is a major source of dinosaur fossils. The Great Artesian Basin (GAB) was flooded by the Eromanga Sea and filled with volcaniclastic sediments eroded from the Cordillera's volcanic arc . A theory was proposed explaining the abundance of opals in GAB. It
42-479: The wave above), as one with limited connection to an ocean, and as simply shallow. An inland sea is only an epeiric sea when a continental interior is flooded by marine transgression due to sea level rise or epeirogenic movement . An epicontinental sea is synonymous with an epeiric sea. The term "epicontinental sea" may also refer to the waters above a continental shelf. This is a legal, not geological, term. Epeiric, epicontinental, and inland seas occur on
49-649: Was suggested that the Eromanga Sea was shallow, cold, muddy, and stagnant, which have led to little amount of carbonates in sediments in the Eromanga Basin. However the abundance of iron-rich and organic sediments have led to an anoxic sub-seafloor well-suited for anaerobic, pyrite-producing bacteria. It was suggested that during the periods of uplift, erosion, and denudation opals were formed due to acidic oxidative weathering during 97 to 60 Ma. 26°S 140°E / 26°S 140°E / -26; 140 Inland sea What constitutes an "inland sea"
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