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epicontinental seas



Actually, there are lots of similar areas, although the exact situation
is less common - where there is a large warm sea between two big
continental chunks. The Gulf of Mexico is in part - those areas that
sit over the american continental shelf and not the deeper areas - and
are the residue of that seaway, as are parts of the polar areas, which
are loaded with epicontinental seaways among the large emergent land chunks.
They are just in a realllllly cold area. The most analogous may be the
Arafura Sea/Gulf of Carpentaria in the northern part of Australia - and has
been of great interest to lots of geologists as a result. The Bering
Strait is in the ballpark, as is the Sea of Okhotsk and probably the area
off the east of Argentina toward the Falkland Islands.  The Arafura
is probably the closest model, though.

Oceanographically yours, Ralph Chapman, NMNH