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.
9-420: Royal Bay is a bay , 6 km (3.7 mi) wide and indenting 8 km (5.0 mi), entered between Cape Charlotte and Cape Harcourt along the north coast of South Georgia . Like other parts of the archipelago, many birds breed here, including king penguins , gentoo penguins , and blue-eyed cormorants . Royal Bay was discovered and named by a British expedition under James Cook in 1775. In 1882
18-552: 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
27-517: A German group of the International Polar Year Investigations expedition under Schrader was sent out to observe the transit of Venus and was stationed at Royal Bay. They were based on the north shore of the bay in 1882–83. The group came in on the steam corvette SMS Moltke which was the first powered vessel to reach South Georgia. Moltke Harbour , a one-mile wide bay on the northwest side of Royal Bay
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
45-400: 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 . Headland A headland , also known as a head , is a coastal landform , a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water . It
54-473: Is a type of promontory . A headland of considerable size often is called a cape . Headlands are characterised by high, breaking waves , rocky shores , intense erosion , and steep sea cliff . Headlands and bays are often found on the same coastline. A bay is flanked by land on three sides, whereas a headland is flanked by water on three sides. Headlands and bays form on discordant coastlines, where bands of rock of alternating resistance run perpendicular to
63-413: 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
72-647: Is named after it. 54°32′S 36°0′W / 54.533°S 36.000°W / -54.533; -36.000 This South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 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
81-408: 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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