Beaufort Sea Beaufort Sea The Beaufort Sea () is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a hydrographer. The Mackenzie River, the longest in Canada, empties into the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea west of Tuktoyaktuk, which is one of the few permanent settlements on the sea shores. The sea, characterized by severe climate, is frozen over most of the year. Historically, only a narrow pass up to opened in August–September near its shores, but recently due
Ocean area and volume – are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria. Oceans are fringed by smaller, adjoining bodies of water such as seas, gulfs, bays, bights, and straits. The mid-ocean ridges of the world are connected and form a single global mid-oceanic ridge system that is part of every ocean and the longest mountain range in the world. The continuous mountain range is long (several times longer than the Andes, the longest continental mountain range). The total mass of the hydrosphere is about 1.4 quintillion metric tons ( long tons or short tons), which is