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84-519: Oakland Point , or Gibbons' Point , was a small promontory formerly on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in West Oakland , California . It was located in the vicinity of what is now the Port of Oakland shipping terminal. Oakland Point was originally named Gibbons' Point, for an early American settler, Rodman Gibbons, who constructed a small wharf there. The Central Pacific Railroad bought

168-545: A deep red color to these ponds from the pigment within the algae protoplasm. The salt marsh harvest mouse is an endangered species endemic to the wetlands of the San Francisco Bay with a high salt tolerance. It needs native pickleweed , which is often displaced by invasive cordgrass, for its habitat. The seasonal range of water temperature in the bay is from January's 53 °F (12 °C) to September's 60 °F (16 °C) when measured at Fort Point , which

252-1022: A hotspot for polybrominated diphenyl ether ( PBDE ) flame retardants used to make upholstered furniture and infant care items less flammable. PBDEs have been largely phased out and replaced with alternative phosphate flame retardants. A 2019 San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) study assayed a wide range of these newer flame retardant chemicals in Bay waters, bivalve California mussels ( Mytilus californianus ), and harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) which haul out in Corkscrew Slough on Bair Island in San Mateo County , with phosphate flame retardant contaminants such as tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TDCPP) and triphenyl phosphate (TPhP) found at levels comparable to thresholds for aquatic toxicity. Thousands of man-made chemicals are found in Bay water, sediment, and organisms. For many of these, there

336-617: A major seaport . The Port of Oakland is one of the largest cargo ports in the United States, while the Port of Richmond and the Port of San Francisco provide smaller services. An additional crossing south of the Bay Bridge has long been proposed. San Francisco Bay is popular for sailors (boats, as well as windsurfing and kitesurfing ), due to consistent strong westerly/northwesterly thermally-generated winds – Beaufort force 6 (15–25 knots; 17–29 mph; 8–13 m/s)

420-689: A maximum depth of 670 m (2,200 ft) in Jervis Inlet . The Transboundary Georgia Basin–Puget Sound Environmental Indicators Working Group defines the limits of the Salish Sea as: On the West. The entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait (a line between Cape Flattery and Carmanah Point ). On the South. The south end of Puget Sound (the head of Budd Inlet ). On the North. Extends just beyond

504-472: A report stating that if current infill trends continued, the bay would be as big as a shipping channel by 2020. This news created the Save the Bay movement in 1960, which mobilized to stop the infill of wetlands and the bay in general, which had shrunk to two-thirds of its size in the century before 1961. The San Francisco Bay continues to support some of the densest industrial production and urban settlement in

588-525: A safe eating advisory for fish caught in the San Francisco Bay based on levels of mercury or PCBs found in local species. The San Francisco Bay Area Water Trail is a planned system of designated trailheads designed to improve non-motorized small boat access to the bay. The California Coastal Conservancy approved funding in March 2011 to begin implementation of the water trail. Salish Sea The Salish Sea ( / ˈ s eɪ l ɪ ʃ / SAY -lish )

672-464: A total area of about 110,000 km (42,000 sq mi), which is over six times the surface area of the sea itself. Major rivers discharging into the sea include the Fraser River , Nisqually River , Nooksack River , Puyallup River , Skagit River , Snohomish River , and Squamish River . The flow of fresh water into the Salish Sea from numerous rivers and the introduction of salt from

756-454: A waterway and harbor , many thousands of acres of marshy wetlands at the edges of the bay were, for many years, considered wasted space. As a result, soil excavated for building projects or dredged from channels was often dumped onto the wetlands and other parts of the bay as landfill. From the mid-19th century through the late 20th century, more than a third of the original bay was filled and often built on. The deep, damp soil in these areas

840-560: A widespread distribution in the bay, with uptake in the bay's phytoplankton and contamination of its sportfish. In January 1971, two Standard Oil tankers collided in the bay, creating an 800,000-U.S.-gallon (3,000,000-liter) oil spill disaster , which spurred environmental protection of the bay. In November 2007, a ship named COSCO Busan collided with the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled over 58,000 U.S. gallons (220,000 liters) of bunker fuel , creating

924-576: Is "Selish Lake". The name Salish Sea was coined only in the late 20th century. No overarching title exists for this area or even a commonly shared name for any of the waterbodies in any of the Coast Salish languages. The waterways of the Salish Sea were important trade routes for the Coast Salish, and they remain a source of food and other resources for the Indigenous peoples . The basin includes territory of not only Coast Salish peoples, but also

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1008-701: Is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean located in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington . It includes the Strait of Georgia , the Strait of Juan de Fuca , Puget Sound , and an intricate network of connecting channels and adjoining waterways . The sea stretches from the channels of the Discovery Islands north of the Strait of Georgia to Budd Inlet at

1092-563: Is common on summer afternoons – and protection from large open ocean swells. Yachting and yacht racing are popular pastimes and the San Francisco Bay Area is home to many of the world's top sailors. A shoreline bicycle and pedestrian trail known as the San Francisco Bay Trail encircles the edge of the bay. The San Francisco Bay Area Water Trail , a growing network of launching and landing sites around

1176-462: Is likely N. de Morena who was left at New Albion at Drakes Bay in Marin County, California , by Sir Francis Drake in 1579 and then walked to Mexico. The first recorded European discovery of San Francisco Bay was on November 4, 1769, when Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá , unable to find the Port of Monterey , continued north close to what is now Pacifica and reached the summit of

1260-433: Is little or no data on their impacts on the environment or human health, and they are not regulated by state or federal law. These are often referred to as "contaminants of emerging concern." The San Francisco Estuary Institute has studied these chemicals in the Bay since 2001. Scientists have identified the following most likely to have a negative impact on Bay wildlife: San Francisco Bay's profile changed dramatically in

1344-484: Is near the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge and at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. For the first time in 65 years, Pacific Harbor Porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena ) returned to the bay in 2009. Golden Gate Cetacean Research, a non-profit organization focused on research on cetaceans , has developed a photo-identification database enabling the scientists to identify specific porpoise individuals and

1428-692: Is or was also known variously as the Georgia–Puget or Puget–Georgia Basin, or in the singular as the Georgia Depression , the Georgia Basin or Puget Sound, et al. The Canadian half of the region was named in 1792 by George Vancouver , and often remains referred to as the Gulf of Georgia , a term which encompasses the Strait of Georgia and all other waters peripheral to it, as well as to the communities lining its shores or on its islands. Like

1512-562: Is subject to soil liquefaction during earthquakes, and most of the major damage close to the bay in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 occurred to structures on these areas. The Marina District of San Francisco, hard hit by the 1989 earthquake, was built on fill that had been placed there for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition , although liquefaction did not occur on a large scale. In

1596-466: Is the most densely populated island with 354 residents/km (916 residents/mi ) as of 2019. The largest island by far on the Canadian side is Texada Island of 300.45 km (116.00 sq mi), but a population of 1000–2000 people. The Salish Sea sits within the Georgia Depression , a large depression that formed out of the collision of continental plates about 150 million years ago . The depression

1680-647: Is trying to ascertain whether a healthier bay has brought their return. Pacific harbor porpoise range from Point Conception , California, to Alaska and across to the Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan. Recent genetic studies show that there is a local stock from San Francisco to the Russian River and that eastern Pacific coastal populations rarely migrate far, unlike western Atlantic Harbor porpoise. The common bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) has been extending its current range northwards from

1764-775: The Carquinez Bridge in May 1927, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936, the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937, the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge in 1956, and the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge in 1967. During the 20th century, the bay was subject to the 1940s Reber Plan , which would have filled in parts of the bay in order to increase industrial activity along the waterfront. In 1959, the United States Army Corps of Engineers released

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1848-598: The Carquinez Strait , carving out sediment and forming canyons in what is now the northern part of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate strait . San Francisco Bay has been filled and emptied of sea water many times during the Pleistocene in accordance with sea level changes caused by glacial advances and retreats. During the Wisconsin Glaciation , between 15,000 and about 10,000 years ago,

1932-854: The Northern Wakashan Kwakwaka'wakw and Southern Wakashan peoples (the Nuu-chah-nulth, Makah , and Ditidaht ) and, formerly, that of the Chimakum (a Chimakuan people related to the Quileute , who no longer exist as a recognizable group, having been wiped out by the Suquamish and others in the 19th century). In March 2008, the Chemainus First Nation proposed renaming the Georgia Strait

2016-635: The Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay . The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2, 2013, and the Port of Oakland on the bay is one of the busiest cargo ports on the west coast. The bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles (1,000–4,000 km ), depending on which sub-bays (such as San Pablo Bay), estuaries, wetlands , and so on are included in

2100-670: The San Francisco Bay Area . It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco , San Jose , and Oakland . San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California. Water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and from the Sierra Nevada mountains, flow into Suisun Bay , which then travels through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay , which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay. It then connects to

2184-698: The Southern California Bight . The first coastal bottlenose dolphin in the Bay Area in recent times was spotted in 1983 off the San Mateo County coast in 1983. In 2001, bottlenose dolphins were first spotted east of the Golden Gate Bridge and confirmed by photographic evidence in 2007. Zooarcheological remains of bottlenose dolphins indicated that bottlenose dolphins inhabited San Francisco Bay in prehistoric times until at least 700 years before present, and dolphin skulls dredged from

2268-793: The Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound , as well as the Strait of Georgia and related waters under the name Salish Sea. In August 2009, the British Columbia Geographical Names Office approved a resolution recommending that the Geographical Names Board of Canada adopt the name Salish Sea contingent on approval by the United States Board on Geographic Names . The name was endorsed by the Washington State Board on Geographic Names in late October 2009. It

2352-597: The brackish , nutrient-rich, conditions. As with all marine food webs, the Salish Sea features a range of trophic groups, with autotrophic algae acting as primary producers. The fluvial systems draining British Columbia and Washington introduce large volumes of sediment and dissolved nutrients into the Salish Sea. The Salish Sea hosts a diverse community of kelp species that provide large volumes of high-quality habitat in areas with hard, rocky substrates . The largest of these kelp species include bull kelp and giant kelp . Eelgrass meadows are abundant throughout

2436-790: The first transcontinental railroad was connected to its western terminus at Alameda on September 6, 1869. The terminus was switched to the Oakland Long Wharf two months later on November 8, 1869. In 1910, the Southern Pacific railroad company built the Dumbarton Rail Bridge , the first bridge crossing San Francisco Bay. The first automobile crossing was the Dumbarton Bridge , completed in January 1927. More crossings were later constructed –

2520-559: The "Salish Sea", an idea that reportedly met with approval by British Columbia's Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong , who pledged to put it before the Executive Council of British Columbia for discussion. Making the name "Salish Sea" official required a formal application to the Geographical Names Board of Canada . A parallel American movement promoting the name had a different definition, combining

2604-458: The 1,200-foot-high (370 m) Sweeney Ridge , now marked as the place where he first sighted San Francisco Bay. Portolá and his party did not realize what they had discovered, thinking they had arrived at a large arm of what is now called Drakes Bay . At the time, Drakes Bay went by the name Bahia de San Francisco and thus both bodies of water became associated with the name. Eventually, the larger, more important body of water fully appropriated

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2688-411: The 1850s, when hydraulic mining released massive amounts of sediment from the rivers that settled in those parts of the bay that had little or no current. Later, wetlands and inlets were deliberately filled in, reducing the bay's size since the mid-19th century by as much as one third. Recently, large areas of wetlands have been restored, further confusing the issue of the bay's size. Despite its value as

2772-404: The 1930s. Starting about the time of World War II and up to the present, the area became predominantly African American. African American men who worked as porters on the railroad had long lived in the area together with other ethnic groups, most of whom held other jobs with the railroad. During World War II, thousands of African Americans move into the Bay Area from the southern U.S. to work in

2856-405: The 1990s, San Francisco International Airport proposed filling in hundreds more acres to extend its overcrowded international runways in exchange for purchasing other parts of the bay and converting them back to wetlands. The idea was, and remains, controversial. ( For further details, see the " Bay fill and depth profile " section. ) There are five large islands in San Francisco Bay. Alameda ,

2940-777: The Historic Landmarks committee, Native Sons of the Golden West , 1921." The bay became the center of American settlement and commerce in the Far West through most of the remainder of the 19th century. During the California Gold Rush (1848–1855), San Francisco Bay suddenly became one of the world's great seaports, dominating shipping in the American West until the last years of the 19th century. The bay's regional importance increased further when

3024-476: The Port of Oakland. Some six million cubic yards (160 million cubic feet; 4.6 million cubic meters) of mud from the dredging was deposited at the western edge of Middle Harbor Shoreline Park to become a 188-acre (0.294 sq mi; 0.76 km ) shallow-water wetlands habitat for marine and shore life. Further dredging followed in 2011, to maintain the navigation channel. This dredging enabled

3108-494: The Strait of Georgia to include those channels and waterways where the floodstream or tidal surge is from the south: Discovery Passage south of Seymour Narrows , Sutil Channel south of Penn Islands, Lewis Channel , Waddington Channel and Pendrell Sound , Desolation Sound , and the southern portion of Homfray Channel . The watershed of the Salish Sea (not including the Upper Fraser River watershed) has

3192-545: The Strait of Georgia. The Salish Sea contains more than 400 islands, most of which can be grouped into one of three island groups: the Discovery Islands , Gulf Islands , and San Juan Islands . Whidbey Island in Washington is the largest and most populous island with a total area of 436.9 km (168.7 sq mi) and an estimated population of 69,480 as of 2010. Bainbridge Island , also in Washington,

3276-525: The Strait of Juan de Fuca create a salinity gradient , which varies considerably depending on seasonal changes in ocean currents and river discharge . The Fraser River is the single largest source of freshwater with an average discharge rate of 3,475 m /s (122,700 cu ft/s) and a maximum discharge rate of 17,000 m /s (600,000 cu ft/s). Residence times at intermediate depths average 60 days in Puget Sound and 160 days in

3360-544: The United States on December 3, 1849, and was accepted as the 31st State of the Union on September 9, 1850. In 1921, a tablet was dedicated by a group of men in downtown San Francisco, marking the site of the original shoreline. The tablet reads: "This tablet marks the shore line of San Francisco Bay at the time of the discovery of gold in California, January 24, 1848. Map reproduced above delineates old shore line. Placed by

3444-487: The United States. The San Francisco Bay Area is the American West's second-largest urban area, with approximately seven million residents. Despite its urban and industrial character, San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta remain perhaps California's most important ecological habitats . California's Dungeness crab , California halibut , and Pacific salmon fisheries rely on

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3528-431: The arrival of Europeans. Indigenous peoples used canoes to fish and clam along the shoreline. Sailing ships enabled transportation between the bay and other parts of the world—and served as ferries and freighters within the bay and between the bay and inland ports, such as Sacramento and Stockton. These were gradually replaced by steam-powered vessels starting in the late 19th century. Several shipyards were established around

3612-628: The arrival of the largest container ship ever to enter the San Francisco Bay, the MSC Fabiola . Bay pilots trained for the visit on a simulator at the California Maritime Academy for over a year. The ship arrived drawing less than its full draft of 50 feet 10 inches (15.5 m) because it held only three-quarters of a load after its stop in Long Beach. San Francisco Bay was traversed by watercraft before

3696-401: The average depth of the bay is only as deep as a swimming pool—approximately 12 to 15 ft (4–5 m). Between Hayward and San Mateo to San Jose it is 12 to 36 in (30–90 cm). The deepest part of the bay is under and out of the Golden Gate Bridge, at 372 ft (113 m). In the late 1990s, a 12-year harbor-deepening project for the Port of Oakland began; it

3780-704: The basin which is now filled by the San Francisco Bay was a large river valley with small hills, channeling the Sacramento River through the Golden Gate Strait into the ocean. When the great ice sheets began to melt, around 11,000 years ago, the sea level started to rise rapidly, by about 1 inch per year. Melting glaciers in the Sierra Nevada washed huge amounts of sediment down the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which accumulated on

3864-588: The bay as a nursery. The few remaining salt marshes now represent most of California's remaining salt marsh, supporting a number of endangered species and providing key ecosystem services such as filtering pollutants and sediments from the rivers. San Francisco Bay is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy , with oversight provided by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership . Most famously,

3948-533: The bay for non-motorized small boat users (such as kayakers) is being developed. Parks and protected areas around the bay include Eden Landing Ecological Reserve , Hayward Regional Shoreline , Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge , Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center , Crown Memorial State Beach , Eastshore State Park , Point Isabel Regional Shoreline , Brooks Island Regional Preserve , and César Chávez Park . The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has developed

4032-598: The bay is a key link in the Pacific Flyway . Millions of waterfowl annually use the bay shallows as a refuge. Two endangered species of birds are found here: the California least tern and the Ridgway's Rail . Exposed bay muds provide important feeding areas for shorebirds , but underlying layers of bay mud pose geological hazards for structures near many parts of the bay perimeter. San Francisco Bay provided

4116-417: The bay suggest occasional visitors in historic times. San Francisco Bay faces many of the same water quality issues as other urban waterways in industrialized countries, or downstream of intensive agriculture. According to state water quality regulators, San Francisco Bay waters do not meet water quality standards for the following pollutants: Industrial, mining, and other uses of mercury have resulted in

4200-481: The bay, augmented during wartime (e.g., the Kaiser Shipyards , Richmond Shipyards ) near Richmond in 1940 for World War II for construction of mass-produced, assembly line Liberty and Victory cargo ships . San Francisco Bay is spanned by nine bridges, eight of which carry cars . The Transbay Tube , an underwater rail tunnel, carries BART services between Oakland and San Francisco. Prior to

4284-537: The bay, with the Leslie Salt Company the largest private land owner in the Bay Area in the 1940s. Low-salinity salt ponds mirror the ecosystem of the bay, with fish and fish-eating birds in abundance. Mid-salinity ponds support dense populations of brine shrimp , which provide a rich food source for millions of shorebirds. Only salt-tolerant micro-algae survive in the high salinity ponds, and impart

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4368-600: The bay. Thousands of sea otter skins were taken to Sitka, then Guangzhou (Canton), China, where they commanded a high price. The United States seized the region from Mexico during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). On February 2, 1848, the Mexican province of Alta California was annexed to the United States with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . A year and a half later, California requested to join

4452-421: The bridges and, later, the Transbay Tube, transbay transportation was dominated by fleets of ferryboats operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Key System transit company. However, in recent decades, ferries have returned, primarily serving commuters from Marin County, relieving the traffic bottleneck of the Golden Gate Bridge (see Ferries of San Francisco Bay ). The bay also continues to serve as

4536-427: The center of the bay, following the ancient drowned river valley. In the 1860s and continuing into the early 20th century, miners dumped staggering quantities of mud and gravel from hydraulic mining operations into the upper Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. GK Gilbert's estimates of debris total more than eight times the amount of rock and dirt moved during construction of the Panama Canal. This material flowed down

4620-400: The decades surrounding 1900, at the behest of local political officials and following Congressional orders, the U.S. Army Corps began dredging the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and the deep channels of San Francisco Bay. This work has continued without interruption ever since. Some of the dredge spoils were initially dumped in the bay shallows (including helping to create Treasure Island on

4704-447: The first map of the area. A number of place names survive (anglicized) from that first map, including Point Reyes , Angel Island , Farallon Islands , and Alcatraz Island . Alaskan Native sea otter hunters using Aleutian kayaks and working for the Russian–American Company entered San Francisco Bay in 1807 and again over 1810–1811. Led by the Russian Timofei Nikitich Tarakanov , these hunting raids probably wiped out sea otters in

4788-412: The formation of glass sponge reefs . These reefs were believed to have gone extinct during or shortly after the Cretaceous period , until a large collection of existing reefs were discovered off the British Columbia Coast in 1987. Due to their scientific and ecological importance, all known sponge reefs in the Salish Sea are protected from bottom-contact fishing activities. The lowlands surrounding

4872-478: The former shoals to the north of Yerba Buena Island ) and used to raise islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The net effect of dredging has been to maintain a narrow deep channel—deeper perhaps than the original bay channel—through a much shallower bay. At the same time, most of the marsh areas have been filled or blocked off from the bay by dikes . Large ships transiting the bay must follow deep underwater channels that are maintained by frequent dredging as

4956-430: The historic 16th Street Station . The station will however, not be put to any railroad use, but will become the centerpiece of a housing development known as Central Station . This Alameda County, California –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California , and gives its name to

5040-482: The largest oil spill in the region since 1996. The bay also has some of the highest levels of dissolved inorganic nitrogen known from any coastal water body, mostly originating from treated wastewater from Publicly owned treatment works . In other bays, such nutrient levels would likely lead to eutrophication , but historically, the bay has had less harmful algal blooms than other water bodies with similar nutrient concentrations. Potential explanations have included

5124-438: The largest island, was created when a shipping lane was cut to form the Port of Oakland in 1901. It is now a suburban community. Angel Island was known as " Ellis Island West" because it served as the entry point for immigrants from East Asia. It is now a state park accessible by ferry. Mountainous Yerba Buena Island is pierced by a tunnel linking the east and west spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge . Attached to

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5208-432: The late 19th century and again with the initiation of dredging by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 20th century. Before about 1860, most bay shores (with the exception of rocky shores, such as those in Carquinez Strait; along Marin shoreline; Point Richmond; Golden Gate area) contained extensive wetlands that graded nearly invisibly from freshwater wetlands to salt marsh and then tidal mudflat. A deep channel ran through

5292-427: The main cultural and linguistic branches of a larger group known as Salishan or Salish. Five divisions of the Salish language family are recognized, with Coast Salish and Interior Salish being the primary two. The Salish family consists of 23 separate languages. European and American explorers first encountered Salishan people along the Pacific Northwest coast in the late 18th century. The first detailed information

5376-413: The main rail yards of the Southern Pacific. Today, the same rail yard is operated by the Union Pacific Railroad . The neighborhood near Oakland Point was initially known by the same name, though its identity soon merged with the rest of West Oakland , the name it was known by from the early 20th century onward. It was a thriving socially and ethnically mixed neighborhood from the late 19th century through

5460-429: The many local war industries, and many of them moved into the established community of African American railroad workers in West Oakland. The name "Oakland Point" has been recently revived as part of an effort to re-develop West Oakland. It has been adopted by a community group called the Prescott-Oakland Point Neighborhood Association . Part of the redevelopment of the area includes, appropriately, partial restoration of

5544-424: The measurement. The main part of the bay measures three to twelve miles (5–19 km) wide east-to-west and somewhere between 48 miles (77 km) and 60 miles (97 km) north-to-south. San Francisco Bay is the second-largest estuary on the Pacific coast of the Americas, following the Salish Sea in Washington State and British Columbia, Canada. The bay was navigable as far south as San Jose until

5628-435: The name San Francisco Bay . The first European to enter the bay is believed to have been the Spanish explorer Juan de Ayala , who passed through the Golden Gate on August 5, 1775, in his ship the San Carlos and moored in a bay of Angel Island now known as Ayala Cove. Ayala continued to explore the San Francisco Bay Area and the expedition's cartographer, José de Cañizares, gathered the information necessary to produce

5712-634: The nation's first wildlife refuge, Oakland's artificial Lake Merritt , constructed in the 1860s, and America's first urban National Wildlife Refuge, the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge (SFBNWR) in 1972. The bay is also plagued by non-native species. Salt produced from San Francisco Bay is produced in salt evaporation ponds and is shipped throughout the Western United States to bakeries, canneries, fisheries, cheese makers and other food industries and used to de-ice winter highways, clean kidney dialysis machines, for animal nutrition, and in many industries. Many companies have produced salt in

5796-457: The north is the artificial and flat Treasure Island , site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition . From the Second World War until the 1990s, both islands served as military bases and are now being redeveloped. Isolated in the center of the bay is Alcatraz , the site of the famous federal penitentiary. The federal prison on Alcatraz Island no longer functions, but the complex is a popular tourist site. Despite its name, Mare Island in

5880-413: The northern part of the bay is a peninsula rather than an island. San Francisco Bay is thought to represent a down-warping of the Earth's crust between the San Andreas Fault to the west and the Hayward Fault to the east, though the precise nature of this remains under study. About 560,000 years ago, a tectonic shift caused the large inland Lake Corcoran to spill out the central valley and through

5964-416: The presence of intensive "top-down control" from grazing clams like Potamocorbula , high sediment supply limiting light availability for the algae, and intensive tidal mixing. The occurrence of an unprecedented harmful algal bloom of Heterosigma akashiwo in 2022, resulting in mass fish deaths and anoxia, suggests that the mechanisms of control on algal growth may be eroding. The bay was once considered

6048-655: The region is home to 8.76 million people. The first known use of the term "Salish Sea" was in 1988 when Bert Webber, a geography and environmental social studies professor emeritus in Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington , created the name for the combined waters in the region with the intention to complement the names Georgia Strait, Puget Sound, and Strait of Juan de Fuca, not replace them. The adoption of

6132-463: The rivers, progressively eroding into finer and finer sediment, until it reached the bay system. Here some of it settled, eventually filling in Suisun Bay, San Pablo Bay, and San Francisco Bay, in decreasing order of severity. By the end of the 19th century, these " slickens " had filled in much of the shallow bay flats, raising the entire bay profile. New marshes were created in some areas. In

6216-602: The shallower regions of the sea. The Salish Sea is home to 253 fish species representing 78 families and 31 orders. These species encompass one myxinid , two petromyzontids , 18 chondrichthyans , two chondrosteans , and 230 teleosts . In addition, the sea hosts 37 marine mammal species, most notably Steller sea lions , humpback whales , and killer whales (orcas). While mammal-eating transient orcas are gradually increasing in population, fish-eating southern resident orcas have struggled to survive due to low salmon populations and inbreeding. In 2019, this orca population

6300-512: The shores of the bay, forming huge mudflats and marshes that supported local wildlife. By 5000 BC the sea level rose 300 feet (90 m), filling the valley with water from the Pacific. The Farallon Islands are what used to be hills along the old coastline, and Potato Patch Shoal is an area of sand dunes now covered by the ocean. The indigenous inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay are Ohlone . The first European to see San Francisco Bay

6384-720: The south end of Puget Sound. It is partially separated from the open Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula . Much of the coast is part of the Pacific Northwest megalopolis . The region is anchored by Metro Vancouver to the north, and Metro Seattle to the south. Other principal cities on the Salish Sea include Bellingham , Port Angeles , Port Townsend , Everett , Tacoma , Olympia , and Bremerton in Washington, and Victoria and Nanaimo in British Columbia. As of 2021,

6468-806: The term "Puget Sound", the terms "Georgia Strait" and "Gulf of Georgia" refer to the general region, as well as the body of water. The Salish Sea is about 440 km (270 mi) long and has a surface area of about 18,000 km (6,900 sq mi), which is roughly the same size as the Gulf of Riga in Northern Europe . This combines the total surface area of the Strait of Georgia (6,400 km or 2,471 mi ), Strait of Juan de Fuca (4,400 km or 1,699 mi ), Puget Sound (2,500 km or 965 mi ), Desolation Sound (1,100 km or 425 mi ), and various other bodies of water (3,600 km or 1,390 mi ). The sea has an average depth of 130 m (430 ft) and reaches

6552-469: The term, he said, would raise consciousness about taking care of the region's waters and ecosystems. Webber's efforts are credited with the official recognition of the term in Canada and the U.S. The Coast Salish are the indigenous peoples who live in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington along the Salish Sea and share a common linguistic and cultural origin. The Coast Salish are seen as one of

6636-751: The wharf and adjacent properties in 1868, and subsequently constructed the Oakland Long Wharf , a massive terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad . In the 1880s, the Long Wharf was purchased and re-engineered by the Southern Pacific Railroad as the Oakland Mole, obliterating Oakland Point. In addition to the wharf, the Central Pacific built a huge rail yard in the area, which later became one of

6720-676: Was approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names on November 12, 2009, and by the British Columbia Geographical Names Office in February 2010. The French name Mer des Salish is also official in Canada. In a 2019 survey of residents in the general vicinity of the Salish Sea, only 9% of Washingtonians and 15% of British Columbians were able to correctly identify and name the Salish Sea. The region encompassing these waterways

6804-459: Was at a 35-year low after three adult deaths and no surviving calves over three years, leaving only 73 whales in the community. In 2021, an upsurge may occur in the humpback whale population with a record 21 humpback calves spotted in Salish waters. Sea otters have been increasingly observed within the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The mineral-rich waters of the Salish Sea are an ideal habitat for

6888-646: Was largely completed by September 2009. Previously, the bay waters and harbor facilities only allowed for ships with a draft of 46 ft (14 m), but dredging activities undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with the Port of Oakland succeeded in providing access for vessels with a 50-foot (15 m) draft. Four dredging companies were employed in the US$ 432 ;million project, with $ 244 million paid for with federal funds and $ 188 million supplied by

6972-538: Was obtained by the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–1806. The term "Salish" was originally applied only to the Interior Salish Flathead tribe living in the region of Flathead Lake , Montana. By the mid-20th century, it had been extended to cover all people speaking a similar language. The Flathead Nation continues to refer to their language and culture as Salish. A variant name for Flathead Lake

7056-547: Was then carved by the advance and retreat of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the Vashon Glaciation , which lasted from about 19,000 – 16,000 BP . The retreat of the ice sheet revealed a scarred landscape that filled in with sea water once it had retreated beyond what is now the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Salish Sea supports an active and dynamic marine ecosystem, dominated by species suited to

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