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Were you ever told why the Black Sea is called Black?
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I guess thia is directed to all of my Southerners more. But as a child I was told the bizarre line that it's because the water in the Black Sea is saturated with hydrogen sulphide and so the water appears very dark.
I have never found any evidence that hydrogen sulphide makes water dark or that the Black Sea appears darker than any other deep sea.
It appears that the name "Black" comes from a different culture that uses colours for directions.
But anyway, were you ever given the hydrogen sulphide explanation?
Top Comment: Sure, as part of local history. They told us that for ancient Greeks "black" in this case was synonymous for "harsh, inhospitable", and apparently they travelled to Crimea during storm seasons. Never heard about directions theory.
Official Discussion: Black Sea [SPOILERS]
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Synopsis: A rogue submarine captain pulls together a misfit crew to go after a sunken treasure rumored to be lost in the depths of the Black Sea. As greed and desperation take control on board their claustrophobic vessel, the increasing uncertainty of the mission causes the men to turn on each other to fight for their own survival.
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Writers: Dennis Kelly
Cast:
- Jude Law as Captain Robinson
- Scoot McNairy as Daniels
- Ben Mendelsohn as Fraser
- Karl Davies as Liam
- Konstantin Khabensky as Blackie
- Grigoriy Dobrygin as Morozov
- Tobias Menzies as Lewis
- Jodie Whittaker as Chrissy
- Michael Smiley as Reynolds
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%
Metacritic Score: 61/100
After Credits Scene? No
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The fact that I have never even heard of this film is proof that some movies just get fucked by lack of advertising.
What actually happened over the Black sea!
Main Post: What actually happened over the Black sea!
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Wouldnt surpise me to find this video in the news tomorrow^^
“Black Sea” is a truly great action/adventure film. I’ve never seen it mentioned here so I thought it deserved a shout-out.
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A true popcorn flick that I’ve never seen mentioned here: “Black Sea” is a 2014 movie about Jude Law as a down-on-his-luck underwater salvage expert trying to find a U-boat wreck full of Nazi gold. It wasn’t high art or anything, just throughly entertaining action and suspense with some stellar performances (Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Scoot McNairy.)
Definitely check it out.
Top Comment: I do like that kind of genre. I'll check it out.
Black Sea (2015) is a tight and good thriller
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So as everyone who is hungover on a Sunday often do, I deiced to watch some movies.
I stumpled across this movie and I remember that people like Mark Kermode was very positive about it. It also has Jude Law, who is often good and was directed by Kevin McDonald, a great director.
I was not disappointed when I saw it. Without going into too much details about the film, it is about a former salvage ub-oat captain (law) who ges fired. When he is talking with his friends, they mention that in the black sea, there is a Nazi u-boat with a shitton of gold, that nobody knows about. With the backing of a rich businessmen, he assemble a team of half english half Russian, to buy a Russian u-boat to salvage this sub. Will they get to the gold or will everything goes tits up?
The cast of this film is amazing and tight. We have Law (who is the man), Ben Mendelsohn, Scoot McNairy and more. Everyone are world weary and you can feel the tension when they are argue with each other.
Have half of the cast being Russian was a great idea and works so well. When half of the team can't understand the other, it creates so much tension.
MacDonald did a great work as director. I was never bored when I saw it and the suspends is nerve wreaking. Is it the most original film? No but it is a tight script, great action and more. What more do you want?
Top Comment: Jude Law deciding to give his character an Aberdonian accent is both the most bizarre & most brilliant thing about this movie. Its a decent thriller, i enjoyed it. Worth a watch. Especially if (like me) you’ve ever visited Aberdeen...
Hi guys is black sea safe to swim after kakhova explosion? Pointed place is where I swim I think about weeks its safe but will it ever be in danger?
Main Post: Hi guys is black sea safe to swim after kakhova explosion? Pointed place is where I swim I think about weeks its safe but will it ever be in danger?
Top Comment: You are far enough enough away that any pollutants that may wash into the Black Sea won’t really affect you. No worries my Kartvelian friend!
Black Sea deluge hypothesis - is there any truth to it ?
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Hey there - I was sent here from r/AskHistorians they said it will be better suited for this subreddit.
I remember first hearing about this theory in the a late 90s/early 00s on Discovery channel.
For those who might not have heard of this: it's the hypothesis that when the Black Sea was reconnected to the Aegean Sea in the Early Neolithic age (around the 7th millennium BCE), the difference in water levels caused a cataclysmic deluge from the Aegean filling in the Black sea. This event would have devastated communities living by the coast. We know that there were lots of Neolithic settlements in Anatolia at the time, it makes sense for settlements to exist on the Black Sea coast as well which would have been wiped out.
As someone who was born by the Black Sea, this idea is fascinating !
I have not heard anything new about this theory (no development since the early 00s). So my questions are:
- Has there been any subsequent studies done on this ? Or evidence discovered ?
- If not then has this theory been disproven ? (gradual filling of the Black Sea instead?)
- Is this theory considered a crackpot theory on the same level as Graham Hancock clickbait ?
Thank you for your time
Top Comment: The 'Black Sea Flood (or Deluge) Hypothesis' has been around since the early 1990's, e.g. these papers from one of the early proponents Ryan et al, 2003 and Ryan, 2004 . This is basically an outgrowth of the not controversial set of observations suggesting that the various basins within the former extent of Paratethys (i.e. the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas, Dacian Basin, etc) have periodically been isolated from each other and the global oceans and can (and have) experienced spillover events when one of them is overfilled with water and spills into others via a 'gateway' or 'spillover point'. In the specific case of the Black Sea Flood Hypothesis, there are actually a few different ideas for multiple different floods from different water bodies (the Wikipedia article linked at the beginning provides a pretty thorough overview). The commonality is that it is assumed that the Black Sea was at a low level compared to today and disconnected from surrounding water bodies and that it was either flooded by an overflow from the Mediterranean (with different potential timings at 7.2, 8.4,or 9.3 thousand years) or from the Caspian (between 16-13 thousand years ago). Regardless of the source of the overflow, if this occurred rapidly this could catastrophically raise the water level which could have inundated varies coastal settlements that existed near the shores of the Black Sea at its lowstand. If correct, the timing / location of these flood events sort of works out to be the origin of at least some of the 'flood myths' that exist in various ancient cultures/texts (i.e. Noah's Flood is not the only flood myth from that region, e.g. flood myths in the Epic of Gilgamesh ). As a more global aside, it is also worth pointing out that flood myths are pervasive across cultures and in many cases are probably linked to real events, many related to different cascading effects caused by the melting of ice sheets (usually glacial outburst floods ) during the transition from the last glacial to the current interglacial. This piece in Discover Magazine talks about some of these. There is also of course the possibility of large, but more normal river flooding resulting in flood myths. Returning specifically to the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis, the idea has been controversial from the get go, and there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical. Some work has suggested that the younger of the flood events were actually pretty small (e.g. Giosan et al, 2009 ) and there does not appear to be any supporting archeological evidence of a major flood in this region at this time (e.g. Yanko-Hombach et al, 2007 ). That latter paper (and subsequent from that group) basically argued that the earlier flood event, from the Caspian might be a better candidate for 'the flood'. But basically the evidence is a mess of inconsistent indicators. E.g., there doesn't seem to be a clear signal of an influx of saline waters from the proposed younger flooding event from the Med (e.g. Mertens et al, 2012 ), it seems like the Black Sea might have actually been higher than the Med. for much of the time leading up to the younger flood event (which is problematic for the older flood event) (e.g. Aksu et al, 2016 ), but then later papers go back to arguing for a sudden influx of saline waters from the Med (e.g. Yanchalina, et al, 2017 ). Most recently, Aksu & Hiscott, 2022 present a review of various lines of evidence which all broadly suggest that at the relevant times (i.e., during the transition from glacial to interglacial), the Black Sea was not lower than the surrounding water bodies, and in fact was persistently higher than the Mediterranean and was consistently outflowing into the Aegean and Marmara. Further, they highlight that this time was likely characterized by a rise in base level of the Black Sea, but one that was more gradual, not catastrophic. TL;DR The idea that a catastrophic rise of the Black Sea, driven by influx of water from either the Mediterranean or the Caspian which in turn reflects global sea level rise following the end of the last glacial maximum and in turn might be the origin of various 'flood myths' (including Noah's flood), has been around for ~30 years. Original work on this was provocative, but not necessarily bad, just incomplete. However, subsequent sedimentological, paleoclimatic, and archaeological work in the region has broadly poked a lot of holes in the original hypotheses. Most recent work suggests that the idea of a catastrophic flood of the Black Sea during the glacial-interglacial transition is not supported by either geologic or archaeologic evidence, but instead the region was characterized by a more gradual rise in base-level and persistent outflow into the Mediterranean.
The Black Sea. How much does it suck for other nations around it that russia is blocking it?
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As a Norwegian I take access to the sea seriously. (How seriously Norway, population; 5 million, take our sea borders you can tell from the russian map of prejudice!). We use the ocean for everything! Whale hunting, tourism, transport, fishing, fighting the russians for even more fishing. Norwegian culture and art is pretty much about fjords (Sea +Mountain), so on and so forth
I am not hearing much complaints from countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey etc. These are NATO countries and it seems bizarre to me that russia can just block NATO sea borders like that!
Anyone in the know could point me to some resources or explain why? Also would like to read up on what kind of day to day consequences this is having for Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. I think I have a pretty good idea how much it sucks for Ukraine of course, but would love some tales of it's importance to you guys in peacetimes as well!
Hopefully I will be helping restoration of Ukraine, and get to visit Odesa in the not to distant future!
Slava Ukraini!
Edit: Learned so far that mined does not mean whole Black Sea is closed! Also looks like Turkey closing entry is only for military ships? And wow... russian commercial ships everywhere! Any progress on banning russian ships from maybe.. everywhere?
Cool map on marine traffic! https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:35.1/centery:43.5/zoom:5
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Yeah, you can stop the whale hunting
Black Sea (2014), starring Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn and Scoot McNairy, is one of the best films you've never heard of.
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The film follows a group of renegade, unemployed sailors led by Jude Law who captains a submarine to the site of a sunken Nazi U-boat containing millions in gold bullion. Things become tense when their derelict sub malfunctions and the feuding British and Russian crew members begin to mutiny when they realize that, as their crew shrinks, their shares of the loot increase. All the while, trying to dodge the Russian Black Sea fleet whose territory they are invading.
This film contains great performances by Jude Law as Captain Robinson and Scoot McNariry as a nervous banker keeping a secret about his powerful corporate bosses fronting the mission. Ben Mendelsohn is amazing as Fraser, a psychotic ex-con whose quarrels with the Russian crew put the mission in major jeopardy.
This film toured the festival circuit in late 2014 and holds an 85% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes; but, like it's intrepid cast of characters, it slipped far under the radar to be noticed by a wide audience.
It was recently released on Blu-Ray and DVD, and I purchased my copy at Walmart based on the back description alone. I highly recommend anyone here looking for a taut, well-written, well-acted thriller to do the same.
Top Comment: Ive heard of it