Denmark Strait

Denmark Strait
Denmark Strait from Breiðavík, Vestfirðir
Connects waters	Greenland Sea , Arctic Ocean
with water	Irmingersee , Atlantic Ocean
Separates land mass	Greenland
of land mass	Iceland
Data
Geographical location	67 ° 46 ′  N , 23 ° 48 ′  W Coordinates: 67 ° 46 ′  N , 23 ° 48 ′  W
length	480 km
Smallest width	290 km

The Denmark Strait is the strait between Greenland and Iceland . The cold East Greenland Current flows through this strait south into the Atlantic.

It is about 480 km long and 289 km wide at the narrowest point (between Straumnes , the north-western cape of the north-western Icelandic peninsula Hornstrandir , and Cape Tupinier on the Blosseville Kyst in East Greenland ) and connects the Atlantic with the Arctic Ocean . The official IHO border between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic, however, runs between Straumnes and Cape Nansen , which is 132 km southwest of Cape Tunipier. The distance from Straumnes to Cape Nansen is 336 km.

At the bottom of the Denmark Strait lies the Greenland-Iceland Rise , which separates the deep-sea basins of the Irminger Sea and the Greenland Sea . There is the "largest waterfall on earth" ( Denmark Strait cataract ), where every second around 3,000,000  m³ of cold, salty water plummets from a depth of 600 m to 4,000 m.

From a geostrategic point of view, the Denmark Strait is the north-western section of the GIUK gap .

Skirmish in Denmark Street in 1941

During the Second World War , on May 24, 1941, a naval battle between German and British ships took place in the Denmark Strait , the so-called battle in the Denmark Strait . The British battle cruiser HMS Hood and the battleship HMS Prince of Wales tried to prevent the breakthrough of the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen into the North Atlantic ( Operation Rhine Exercise ). In the course of this battle, the Hood was sunk. The Bismarck was also sunk three days later by another British warship association.

Pack ice in the Denmark Strait