Vitiaz Strait

Vitiaz Strait is a strait between New Britain and the Huon Peninsula, northern New Guinea.

The Vitiaz Strait was so named by Nicholai Nicholaievich Mikluho-Maklai to commemorate the Russian corvette Vitiaz in which he sailed from October 1870 by way of South America and the Pacific Islands reaching Astrolabe Bay in September 1871.

Hydrography

The 1200 m deep Vitiaz Strait "was a focus of attention by Australian and USA oceanographers on voyages in 1985, 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1992 as part of the Western Equatorial Pacific Ocean Circulation Study, WEPOCS".

The New Guinea Coastal Undercurrent transports "high-salinity, low-tritium, high-oxygen, low-nutrient water from the Solomon Sea northwestward along the north coast of Papua New Guinea through the Vitiaz Strait".

However, the surface layer current running through the strait, the New Guinea Coastal Current, experiences a seasonal reversal. In boreal summer (northern hemisphere summer) characterized by the south-easterly monsoon, the westward current dominates; during boreal winter (northern hemisphere winter) under the influence of the northwesterly monsoonal winds, the eastward flow dominates.