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.
6-708: Hobsons Bay is a small open bay in Victoria , Australia , and is the northernmost part of the larger Port Phillip Bay . Its western and eastern boundaries are marked by Point Gellibrand in Williamstown and Point Ormond in Elwood respectively, and defines the coastal margin of the Melbourne suburbs of Wiliamstown, Newport , Port Melbourne , Albert Park , Middle Park , St. Kilda West , St. Kilda and Elwood. The Yarra River flows into Hobsons Bay. Hobsons Bay
12-499: A variety of shoreline characteristics as other shorelines. In some cases, bays have beaches , which "are usually characterized by a steep upper foreshore with 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
18-736: Is named after William Hobson who led the surveying party in Port Philip Bay. Beaches adjoining the bay are Sandridge Beach (in Port Melbourne), Port Melbourne Beach (in Port Melbourne), South Melbourne Beach (in Albert Park ), West Beach (in St Kilda West ) and St Kilda Beach (in St Kilda ). This article about a place in Melbourne is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bay A bay can be
24-594: 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 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
30-503: The Law of the Sea defines a bay as a well-marked indentation in 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
36-458: The mouth of that indentation — otherwise it would be referred to as 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
#130869