We explain what the Bering Strait is, its width and depth. Also, who owes its name and the theories about this place.
What is the Bering Strait?
It is known as the Bering Strait (BeringStrait, in English) to a portion of the sea that stretches between the extreme east of the Asian territory (Siberia, Russia) and the extreme north-west of the American (Alaska), serving as a communicating channel between the Chukotka Sea (to the north) and the sea Bering (south). It has a width of 82 kilometers waters cold and an average depth of 30 to 50 meters.
The Bering Strait was named in honor of the Danish explorer Vitus Bering, who in the service of the Russian Empire crossed it for the first time in 1728. It is assumed that the Russian explorer Semyon Dezniov would have crossed its waters in 1648, but that News would not have reached Europe. There were later expeditions by the British James Cook and Frederick William Beechey.
Inside the strait there are two islands known as the Diomedes Islands: the Lesser Diomede is North American territory and the Greater Diomede is Russian territory. Between the two islands passes the international date change line, which divides the strait in two.
Various plans have been proposed for the construction of a bridge connecting the two ends of the Bering Strait, allowing overland transit of Asia to America. The initial project was abandoned after the success of the Transatlantic Telegraph Cable, but resumed in recent years as a commercial passage project between the United States, Russia and China, which could include a 200 km long underwater tunnel.
Today, the Bering Strait area is a closed military zone, which can be visited with the appropriate safe conducts from the government Russian, which is usually very strict in its control of the region. The only ones populations nearby Russians are the cities of Anadyr and Providéniya.
Bering Strait Theory
Some theories about migration of human being from Asia to America in remote times see in the Bering Strait a possible answer: the low level of oceans caused by an ice age or glaciation, would have exposed a stretch of land linking the two continents, through which some human ancestor would have migrated. This natural bridge would be known as the Beringia Bridge.
This would have given rise to the human colonization of the American continent and, above all, to a parallel evolution with respect to its European and Asian cousins, since by increasing the temperature global and melt the ice, the ocean it would have increased its level and submerged the natural bridge between the continents, isolating the American settlers. This theory is still under discussion by the various specialists in the field.