Labrador Sea (French:
mer du Labrador) (60°00'N, 55°00'W) is an arm of the North Atlantic
OceanAn ocean is a large body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 75% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
between
LabradorLabrador is a region of Atlantic Canada. Together with the island of Newfoundland from which it is separated by the Strait of Belle Isle, it constitutes the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The region is part of the much larger Labrador Peninsula on the Canadian mainland...
and
GreenlandGreenland is an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago...
.
Water depths in the center of Labrador Sea are around and it is flanked by
continental shelvesThe continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain, and was part of the continent during the glacial periods, but is undersea during interglacial periods such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas and gulfs. The continental rise is below the...
to the southwest, northwest, and northeast. It connects to the north with
Baffin BayBaffin Bay a sea connecting the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 1,130 km across from north to south. It is not navigable most of the year because of the presence of large numbers of icebergs.-History:...
through the
Davis StraitDavis Strait is a northern arm of the Labrador Sea. It lies between mid-western Greenland and Nunavut, Canada's Baffin Island. The strait was named for the English explorer John Davis , who explored the area while seeking a Northwest Passage....
.
The Labrador Sea probably formed by sea-floor spreading that started around 61 million years ago and stopped about 40 million years ago.
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Labrador Sea (French:
mer du Labrador) (60°00'N, 55°00'W) is an arm of the North Atlantic
OceanAn ocean is a large body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 75% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
between
LabradorLabrador is a region of Atlantic Canada. Together with the island of Newfoundland from which it is separated by the Strait of Belle Isle, it constitutes the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The region is part of the much larger Labrador Peninsula on the Canadian mainland...
and
GreenlandGreenland is an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago...
.
Water depths in the center of Labrador Sea are around and it is flanked by
continental shelvesThe continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain, and was part of the continent during the glacial periods, but is undersea during interglacial periods such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas and gulfs. The continental rise is below the...
to the southwest, northwest, and northeast. It connects to the north with
Baffin BayBaffin Bay a sea connecting the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is 1,130 km across from north to south. It is not navigable most of the year because of the presence of large numbers of icebergs.-History:...
through the
Davis StraitDavis Strait is a northern arm of the Labrador Sea. It lies between mid-western Greenland and Nunavut, Canada's Baffin Island. The strait was named for the English explorer John Davis , who explored the area while seeking a Northwest Passage....
.
The Labrador Sea probably formed by sea-floor spreading that started around 61 million years ago and stopped about 40 million years ago. There is an earlier history of basin formation on all margins.
During the
ice ageThe general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual...
, the North American ice sheet repeatedly collapsed sending armadas of icebergs into Labrador Sea. Rocks that melted from the icebergs today form a layer of drop stones (
glacial erraticA glacial erratic is a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. "Erratics" take their name from the latin word "errere", and are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres...
s) on the bottom of Labrador Sea.
One of the world's largest
turbiditeTurbidite geological formations have their origins in turbidity current deposits, which are deposits from a form of underwater avalanche that are responsible for distributing vast amounts of clastic sediment into the deep ocean.-The ideal turbidite sequence:...
channels runs N-S in the middle of Labrador Sea. Turbidite avalanches run down this channel for many hundreds of kilometers, many of them ending in very deep water off
New EnglandNew England is a region of the United States. It is located at the northeastern corner of the US, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern U.S...
.
The Labrador Sea is the source of the
North Atlantic Deep WaterNorth Atlantic Deep Water is a water mass that forms in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is largely formed in the Labrador Sea and in the Greenland Sea by the sinking of highly saline, dense overflow water from the Greenland Sea...
, a cold, highly saline water that forms in the Labrador Sea and flows at great depth along the western edge of the North Atlantic, spreading out to form the largest identifiable water mass in the
World OceanThe World Ocean, world ocean, or global ocean is the interconnected system of the earth's oceanic waters, and comprises the bulk of the hydrosphere....
.