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Bellingshausen Sea
Part of the Southern Ocean along the Antarctic Peninsula / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bellingshausen Sea is an area along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula between 57°18'W and 102°20'W, west of Alexander Island, east of Cape Flying Fish on Thurston Island, and south of Peter I Island (there the southern Vostokkysten).[1] The Bellingshausen Sea borders the Eights Coast, the Bryan Coast, and the west part of the English Coast. To the west of Cape Flying Fish it joins the Amundsen Sea.
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Bellingshausen Sea has an area of 487,000 km2 (188,000 sq mi) and reaches a maximum depth of 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi).[2] It contains the undersea plain Bellingshausen Plain.
The Antarctic Slope Current (ASC) is thought to originate in the Bellingshausen Sea as the result of a density front at the shelf break, rather than being wind-driven.[3]
It takes its name from Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who explored in the area in 1821.
In the late Pliocene Epoch, about 2.15 million years ago, the Eltanin asteroid (about 1-4 km in diameter) impacted at the edge of the Bellingshausen sea (at the Southern Ocean). This is the only known impact in a deep-ocean basin in the world.[4]