See also: Handle

The Manche is a Mer épicontinentale of the Atlantic Ocean, located in the North-West of the Europe, and which extends on a surface from approximately 75  000 km ²; long of 500 km, broad 250 km (to the maximum) and deep of 172 m in its point low. The Eastern English Channel constitutes with the strait of the Pas-de-calais one of the most attended maritime zones sphere. In its septentrional part (Pas-de-Calais), because of the currents among most important in the world, water is very turbide, but while remaining oxygenated.

In English one calls it English Chanel or Chanel .

Origin and old direction of the name

The arm of the sea which separates the France and the England has says one named British Manche by metaphor with the common noun handle which indicates the part of clothing in which the arm threads. Although in 1768, Bruzen of Martinière indexes in its large gazetteer, historical, and critical, more than 15 Handles, the use will restrict the word throughout the following centuries with the simple denomination of the British English Channel, the other arms of the sea being called Détroit and channel according to their size.

Maritime security and environment

Currents and concentration the traffic, as well as the high number of ships transporting of the hazardous substances make of northern part of the English Channel a zone where the Danger S and Risque S for the Maritime security and the Civil security are many and important.

All English Channel (place of the Unloading of June 6th, 1944, and the Battle of Normandy) is also concerned with the after-effects of war, with hundreds of wrecks of ships and planes dating from the two world wars and of many deposits immersed of conventional and chemical ammunition.

In the strait, the currents among more the violent ones in the world maintain a very particular ecosystem, sometimes compared with a gigantic purification plant with fluidized bed, not being able however to absorb excesses of Nitrate S and Phosphate S which the sea receives there, nor the nonbiodegradable Toxique S.
Although nonspectacular, the Biodiversité is significant there and its productivity much more still. It is an important zone of Frayère S and nourrissage for the fish, but which undergoes the impacts of a fishing old and intensive, and in particular of the Chalutage, in addition to the important Pollution S of terrestrial or marine origin. It is also a very important corridor of migration for the birds and certain fish and marine mammals.

Fish

The Eastern English Channel, although exploited by a restricted number of fishing vessels (trawlers craftsmen of inshore fishing, boats of offshore fishing), produces more than 80% of the products declared by the countries fishing in this sector, not without ecological impact and on the resource. The principal target species are the plaice, the Merlan, the Morue and the Red mullet. The culture of Oyster S and mould S is practiced there, but less intensely than in the Atlantic. Boulogne-sur-Mer, on the Littoral French, is there the first French fishing port in unloaded tonnage, and first European port for the treatment of the products of the sea. It is in addition an old industrial town.

Prehistory

This narrow maritime corridor of 75  000 km ² put in contact the Atlantic and the North Sea. It separates the two principal sedimentary basins from Western Europe, those of Paris and London, formerly joined together. The existence of the English Channel is due to a tectonic depression, there is 800  approximately, and especially 000 years of the increase of the seas which isolated British Isles from the continent at the end of the quaternary glaciations. This rupture gave rise to cliffs of Dover (England), counterparts of the French landscapes of the course Gray-Nose. According to a new Natural study of , the English Channel would have been creates following the collapse of a natural barrier which retained a lake, there are hundreds of thousands of years.

Geography

It communicates with:

• the the North Sea by the Pas-de-Calais in the east;
• the Atlantic Ocean in the west.

The running S are directed overall towards north in rising Marée, and towards the south after the " reverse courants" with downward tide, but the assessment enters the two contrary movements shows however a differential in favor of a slow movement of the water mass towards north.

The entry of the English Channel of the Atlantic is marked by the Scillies in north and Ushant in the south. To the north of Cotentin, the Fosse of Casquets plunges to approximately 160 m of depth.

The countries which border the English Channel are:

• the the United Kingdom in north;
• the France in the south.

French areas broadsides by the English Channel: Nord-Pas-de-Calais; Picardy; High-Normandy; Basse-Normandie; Brittany.

French departments bordered by the English Channel: Pas-de-Calais; Somme; Seine-Maritime; Apple-brandy; Handle; Ille-et-Vilaine; Coast-with Armor; Finistere.

English counties bordered by the English Channel: Cornouailles; Devon; Dorset; Hampshire; Sussex of the West; East Sussex ; Kent.

Unit divisions English broadsides by the English Channel: Island of Wight; Bournemouth; Brighton and Hove; Plymouth; Poole; Portsmouth; Southampton; Scillies.

Transport

By its statute of arm of the sea between the Atlantic Ocean and the the North Sea, the English Channel constitutes the principal sea route between the Atlantic Ocean and Northern Europe. In 2005, almost 20% of the world traffic of the declared ships pass by the English Channel. The Cabotage decreased there, but could be started again within the framework of the “maritime Autoroutes” proposed like less polluting alternative to road transport

Ferries connect France and England since the dixneuvième century, and the May 6th 1994 was inaugurated the Channel tunnel, making it possible to connect by railway way Great Britain and continental Europe, without stopping the sea links between some port S of France and England.

Crossings of ferry are done between:

• Dover - Calais
• Dover - Boulogne-sur-Mer
• Newhaven - Dieppe
• Newhaven - Le Havre
• Portsmouth - Caen
• Portsmouth - Cherbourg
• Portsmouth - Le Havre
• Poole - Saint-Malo
• Weymouth pine - Saint-Malo
• Plymouth - Roscoff.

Culture

The January 7th 1785, a Balloon with gas controlled by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel in the direction England - France.

Matthew Webb carried out the first Traversée the English Channel with the stroke the August 25th 1875. Gertrude Ederle was as for it the first woman to cross it to the stroke the August 6th 1926 of 14 hours, 39 minutes. Better performance for the crossing of the channel realized by the American Chad Hundeby in 1994: 7 hours and 17 minutes

The July 25th 1909, Louis Blériot was the first to cross the English Channel in the plane.

The department of the Manche took its name of the sea, and the islands of the English Channel , it is French indigenous name of the Archipel that one calls in France the Channel Islands ( Chanel Islands in English).

Remarkable sites:

• the Channel Islands;
• the Mount-Saint-Michel;
• the beaches of the unloading;
• cliffs of the Country of Caux;
• the Bay of Somme.
• the national site of the Two Capes.

See also: History of the English Channel

See too

• immersed Ammunition

External bonds

• green Book of the European Union Towards a maritime policy of the Union: a European vision of the oceans and seas (2007)
• Marevita (Site devoted to illustrate the biodiversity of the fauna and flora of the French coasts of the Atlantic and the English Channel).

Random links:

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