The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is north of Norway and Russia. It was called the Murman Sea in the Middle Ages. The new name is from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents. It is a rather deep shelf sea. The average depth is and maximum depth is . It is bordered by the Norwegian Sea in the west, the islands of Svalbard (Norway) in the northwest, and the islands of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya in the northeast and east. Novaya Zemlya separates the Kara Sea from the Barents Sea. A lot of fossil fuel energy resources are in the Barents Sea area.