Coastal plain estuaries.
Coastal plain estuaries (1) are created when sea levels rise and fill in an existing river valley. The Chesapeake Bay, on the East Coast of the United States, is a coastal plain estuary. Chesapeake Bay was formed at the end of the last ice age.
What type of estuary is Chesapeake?
coastal plain estuaries
The Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast of the United States and Coos Estuary on the West Coast are both coastal plain estuaries. These, and most other coastal plain estuaries in North America, were formed at the end of the last ice age between 10,000-18,000 years ago.
Is the Chesapeake Bay a partially mixed estuary?
Because it is subject to multiple fresh water and terrigenous sediment inputs from the rivers on its western shore and an equally influential semidiurnal salt water input from the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay is a partially mixed estuary.
Is the Chesapeake Bay in estuary?
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The largest estuary in North America, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed covers 64,000 square miles and includes more than 150 rivers and streams that drain into the Bay.
What is a type of estuary?
Estuaries can also be classified by the circulation patterns: Salt Wedge: This is the simplest circulation pattern where a large, fast flowing river enters the ocean in an area where the tidal range is low to moderate. The rapidly entering freshwater holds back a wedge of salt water.
Is the Chesapeake Bay a salt-wedge estuary?
The Chesapeake Bay watershed is characterized by rapidly flowing rivers discharging to the bay where tidal currents are weak. This creates the most stratified or least mixed type of estuary (as classified by water circulation) – a salt-wedge.
Why is the Chesapeake Bay an estuary what kind of estuary is it?
Coastal plain estuaries (1) are created when sea levels rise and fill in an existing river valley. The Chesapeake Bay, on the East Coast of the United States, is a coastal plain estuary. Chesapeake Bay was formed at the end of the last ice age.
What are partially mixed estuaries?
Partially mixed estuaries
In a partially mixed estuary, the vigorous rise and fall of the tide generates strong turbulence and causes partial mixing between the fresh water above and the salt water below.
What is well-mixed estuary?
A well-mixed estuary is a system in which the water column is completely mixed, making the estuary vertically homogeneous.
What is a vertically mixed estuary?
Vertically Mixed Estuary
A vertically-mixed or well-mixed estuary occurs when river flow is low and tidally generated currents are moderate-to-strong. The salinity of water in a vertically-mixed estuaries is the same from waters surface to the bottom of the estuary.
Is the Chesapeake Bay the largest estuary in the world?
The Chesapeake Bay Watershed
is the largest estuary in United States and the third largest in the world; supports more than 18 million people who live, work, and play within the watershed (10 million of these live along or near the Bay’s shores);
What is the 3rd largest estuary in the world?
Chesapeake Bay
Many sources describe Chesapeake Bay as the world’s third-largest estuary.
How is the Chesapeake Bay different from other estuaries?
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest of more than 100 estuaries in the United States. About half of the Bay’s water volume comes from salt water from the Atlantic Ocean. The other half drains into the Bay from its enormous 64,000-square-mile watershed.
What is the most common type of estuary?
Drowned river valleys are also known as coastal plain estuaries. In places where the sea level is rising relative to the land, sea water progressively penetrates into river valleys and the topography of the estuary remains similar to that of a river valley. This is the most common type of estuary in temperate climates.
Is intertidal zone a type of estuary?
The intertidal zone is one of a number of marine biomes or habitats, including estuary, neritic, surface, and deep zones.
What is estuary and examples?
Estuary Formation
Chesapeake Bay (Virginia and Maryland) and Galveston Bay (Texas) are classical examples of this type of estuary. The movement of sand and formation of sandbars along the coastline can enclose bodies of water and form lagoon-type or bar-built estuaries such as Laguna Madre, Texas.
Is the Chesapeake Bay salt or freshwater?
Salinity. The Bay receives about half its water volume from the Atlantic Ocean in the form of saltwater. The other half is freshwater that drains into the Bay from its enormous watershed. Salinity is the primary physical and ecological variable that changes through the length of the Bay.
What is an inverse estuary?
Inverse estuaries occur in dry climates where evaporation greatly exceeds the inflow of freshwater. A salinity maximum zone is formed, and both riverine and oceanic water flow close to the surface towards this zone. This water is pushed downward and spreads along the bottom in both the seaward and landward direction.
What is the salt wedge?
Definition of Salt wedge:
Seawater intrusion in an estuary as a wedge-shaped bottom layer which hardly mixes with the overlying fresh water layer. Salt wedges occur in estuaries where tidal motion is very weak or absent. This is the common definition for Salt wedge, other definitions can be discussed in the article.
Why is the Chesapeake Bay estuary important?
It is one of the most productive estuaries in the world, with over 3,600 species of animals and plants. The bay provides vitally important habitats for wildlife, lots of recreational opportunities for people, and is an important fishery upon which both people and wildlife depend.
What is the largest freshwater estuary in the world?
Green Bay
Description. Green Bay has sometimes been referred to as the largest freshwater “estuary” in the world. Its watershed, much of it in intensive agriculture, comprises one-third of the Lake Michigan basin and delivers one-third of the lake’s total phosphorus load.