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.
6-728: Lagonoy Gulf is a large gulf in the Bicol Peninsula of Luzon island in the Philippines . It is separated from the Philippine Sea by the Caramoan Peninsula in the north; and is separated from Albay Gulf in the south by a chain of islands including Batan Island and Rapu-rapu Island . It is about 3,070 square kilometres (1,190 sq mi) in area, with 80% of its area between 800 metres (2,600 ft) and 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) deep. The gulf
12-577: 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
18-499: 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
24-533: Is home to 480 fish species, and annual fishery production in 2004 amounted to some 20,000 MT , making Lagonoy Gulf a major fishing ground in the Philippines. Coral reefs, seaweed/seagrass beds, and mangroves form the critical habitats for gulf's ecology. This article about a location in Bicol Region is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bay A bay can be the estuary of
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
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