A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean , a lake , or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf , sea , sound , or bight . A cove is a small, circular bay with a narrow entrance. A fjord is an elongated bay formed by glacial action. The term embayment is also used for related features , such as extinct bays or freshwater environments.
12-538: Exmouth Gulf is a gulf in the north-west of Western Australia . It lies between North West Cape and the main coastline of Western Australia. It is considered to be part of the Pilbara Coast and Northwest Shelf , and the Carnarvon Basin geologic formation. It was named after Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth by Phillip Parker King in 1818. Exmouth Gulf is a rich marine environment. It
24-552: A bight . There are various ways in which bays can form. The largest bays have developed through plate tectonics . As the super-continent Pangaea broke up along curved and indented fault lines, the continents moved apart and left large bays; these include the Gulf of Guinea , the Gulf of Mexico , and the Bay of Bengal , which is the world's largest bay. Bays also form through coastal erosion by rivers and glaciers . A bay formed by
36-502: A broad, flat fronting terrace". Bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they provided easy access to marine resources like fisheries . Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports . The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea defines a bay as a well-marked indentation in
48-401: A glacier is a fjord . Rias are created by rivers and are characterised by more gradual slopes. Deposits of softer rocks erode more rapidly, forming bays, while harder rocks erode less quickly, leaving headlands . Bight (geography) In geography , a bight ( / b aɪ t / ) is a concave bend or curvature in a coastline , river or other geographical feature, or it may refer to
60-400: A very open bay formed by such a feature. Such bays are typically broad, open, shallow and only slightly recessed. Bights are distinguished from sounds , in that sounds are much deeper. Traditionally, explorers defined a bight as a bay that could be sailed out of on a single tack in a square-rigged sailing vessel, regardless of the direction of the wind (typically meaning the apex of
72-694: Is 11 hectares (27 acres) Sunday Island , lying in the north of the Gulf near the Muiron Islands, which is an important nesting site for roseate terns . 22°10′S 114°18′E / 22.167°S 114.300°E / -22.167; 114.300 Bay A bay can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay , an estuary of the Susquehanna River . Bays may also be nested within each other; for example, James Bay
84-428: Is a nursery for humpback whales , dugong and turtles . The mangrove systems on the eastern margins are areas of high primary productivity feeding and restocking both the Gulf and the nearby Ningaloo Reef . A proposal for a system of solar salt evaporation ponds stretching more than 30 kilometres (19 mi) along the gulf's south-western coast has given rise to heated debate on possible environmental impacts on
96-413: Is an arm of Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada . Some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology . The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds and blocks waves . Bays may have as wide a variety of shoreline characteristics as other shorelines. In some cases, bays have beaches , which "are usually characterized by a steep upper foreshore with
108-617: The area. The Gulf and off-shore waters beyond the Ningaloo fringing reef are home to some of Australia's more significant sport fish including marlin, Spanish mackerel, and several sub-species of tuna. The Gulf sustains one of Western Australia's largest prawn fisheries, managed by the Kailis Fishing Group, which operates under license from the Western Australian Government. The mangroves along
120-563: The bight is less than 25 degrees from the edges). According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , an indentation with an area as large as (or larger than) that of the semi-circle whose diameter is a line drawn across the mouth of that indentation, can be regarded as a bay not merely a bight. The term is derived from Old English byht ("bend, angle, corner; bay, bight") with German Bucht and Danish bugt as cognates , both meaning " bay ". Bight
132-408: The coastline, whose penetration is in such proportion to the width of its mouth as to contain land-locked waters and constitute more than a mere curvature of the coast. An indentation, however, shall not be regarded as a bay unless its area is as large as (or larger than) that of the semi-circle whose diameter is a line drawn across the mouth of that indentation — otherwise it would be referred to as
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#1732790311922144-404: The eastern side of the gulf stretch for nearly 50 kilometres (31 mi). They have been identified by BirdLife International as a 420 square kilometres (160 sq mi) Important Bird Area (IBA) because they support over 1% of the world populations of pied oystercatchers and grey-tailed tattlers , as well as being an important site for the restricted-range dusky gerygone . Another IBA
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