Where is minas basin

These include species of jellyfish, crabs, barnacles, planktonic copepods, snails and bivalve molluscs. The nearest populations are in the southern Gulf of Maine or the warm, brackish water of the southern Gulf of St.

Those in the Basin may be hangers-on, or "relicts", of a period some 4, years ago when the climate was warmer and their populations extended over the whole region.

With declining temperatures, isolated groups of these species were trapped in a few favoured pockets, or "refugia", that had water slightly warmer than the rest of the region.

Failing Fisheries? The Minas Basin is home to a variety of fish, some of which were once exceptionally abundant. At least 50 species have been found in the region.

The channels winding through the salt marshes are important nursery areas for some of them. For generations, the fisheries sustained many coastal communities, but over many decades the stocks of most commercial fish have declined and the fisheries have dwindled. The high tidal range was ideally suited to the weir fishery, which for generations was the most popular harvest method. The crescent-shaped weirs, constructed of brush or twine netting suspended on stakes driven into the mudflats, were ingeniously designed and positioned to trap fish on the receding tide.

They indiscriminately caught a wide range of commercial and non-commercial fish as well as the occasional shark, porpoise or tuna. An observer in the s reported that there was, on average, one weir every mile along the north shore of the Basin. In particularly favourable areas there was an almost unbroken line of weirs, with ends almost touching. Now, only a handful of them are seen.

The American shad was once the dominant fishery in the Basin. Prior to , thousands of barrels of salt shad were exported each year. Weir catches ranged as high as , fish on a single tide. However, by shad numbers had fallen sharply, probably because of new hydro dams on, and pollution of, many New England spawning rivers. Nowadays, a catch of more than a thousand fish is exceptional. The second most important fishery was for the Atlantic salmon that crowded into the many rivers surrounding the Basin to spawn.

These were also caught with weirs, as well as with fixed or floating gill nets. The largest numbers were caught in the Avon and Economy rivers and in Cobequid Bay. By the s, salmon numbers had also fallen sharply, a decline that has continued to the present day. Commercial and recreational salmon fisheries are now banned and there are calls for the surviving fish to be declared an endangered species. Local trawlers fished for winter flounder in the Basin for many years.

This imposed a natural control on harvesting and ensured a sustainable fishery. However, in the late s, larger trawlers from the lower Bay, having fished out flounder stocks there, moved into Minas Basin.

These could work continuously at all stages of the tide, day and night and with much larger, heavier trawls. Within a very short time they decimated the flounder stock and numbers have never fully recovered, leaving a much-reduced fishery. The fifteen or so local vessels still operating in the Basin now harvest a mix of species, such as groundfish and lobster in different seasons.

The lobsters are concentrated in the deeper areas of the Minas Channel, where strong currents sweep the gravelly bottom free of silt.

Only very large, heavy traps weighed down with hundreds of pounds of concrete can be set in such currents, requiring the use of larger boats than are normally used for lobstering.

The digging and processing of the soft-shell clam has also been a lucrative fishery in the Basin over the years. It is also one of the least capital-intensive, requiring only an "hack" a long-tined rake for turning over the sediments , buckets and a cart for transporting the paraphernalia and catch over the tidal flats.

Commercial clamming began early in the s, with a peak production of tonnes in Over the next two decades, production declined as the existing large clams were depleted.

A rise in abundance, accompanied by an increasing demand and climbing prices led to a resurgence in production in the s. In , one hundred and ten full-time, licensed clammers, many part-timers and three processing plants produced over tonnes of clams, worth at least half a million dollars. The most productive clam flats are located along the northern shore of the Basin, particularly between Five Islands and Bass River. In recent decades, production has once again declined, with fewer, smaller clams present, some of the flats closed because of sewage contamination, and a reduced number of clammers.

The mudflats of the Southern Bight have a finer consistency and are better suited to a variety of burrowing polychaete worms. Some of these, particularly the bloodworm, Glycera dibrachiata , are the target of a commercial baitworm harvest. Large quantities are dug and exported to the northeastern states for use as live bait in recreational fisheries. This harvest expanded rapidly in the Minas Basin in the mid s, after overexploitation had decimated the worm populations around the Gulf of Maine and outer Bay of Fundy.

Harvesters manually turn over the mud with a hack, disturbing large swaths of mudflat on each low tide. There are concerns that this may be harming the Corophium that share the mudflats and are critical food for migrating shorebirds. There is little reliable information about production rates and sustainable harvest levels for the worms, making it difficult to develop meaningful, long-term management policies to protect the population from overexploitation.

Wildlife and Waterfow l It is unlikely that Minas Basin will ever become a hotbed for whale watching comparable to that at the mouth of Fundy.

However, small pods of harbour porpoises are sometimes seen and common and Atlantic white-sided dolphins are periodic summer visitors. Larger whales, such as pilot, minke and humpback, are rare but do occasionally strand on the mudflats. While not overly attractive to marine mammals, the Basin is a magnet for waterfowl and shorebirds that congregate in huge flocks at particular times of the year. The shallows of the Southern Bight and Cobequid Bay are important wintering areas for black ducks, loons and mergansers.

The wetlands and marshes around the Basin are foraging areas for dabbling ducks and geese during spring and fall migrations. Further offshore, common eiders, oldsquaws and white-winged scoters wait out the winter months. Boot Island, off the mouth of the Gaspereau River, and Egg Island, one of the Five Islands, are nesting sites for double-crested cormorants, herring gulls, great black-backed gulls and great blue herons.

Peregrine falcons once nested on cliffs around the Basin, with the last known aerie on the foot rock face of Diamond Island, another of the Five Islands. In the past decade, captive breeding programs have re-established these swift, graceful predators in some places in the upper Bay.

However, it is for its shorebirds, particularly the long-legged sandpipers and plovers, that the Basin is world renowned among birders and conservationists. The critical importance of the mudflats as foraging areas for millions of migrating sandpipers is described in Fundy Issues Number 3, " Sandpipers and Sediments: Shorebirds in the Bay of Fundy".

This area is also part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve network that protects the chain of habitats of migrating shorebirds stretching from the Arctic to southern South America.

Other Opportunities With the highest tides in the world, and its semi-enclosed, basin-like form, it is not surprising that the Minas Basin has long attracted engineers to the challenge of converting this massive, ceaseless flow of water into electricity.

On average, eight cubic kilometres of seawater surges past Cape Split on each tide, with a power roughly comparable to that 25 million horses. As long ago as , Ralph Clarkson, a physics professor at Acadia University, built a prototype tidal power generator that he planned to set up near Cape Split.

He even recruited investors in the Cape Split Development Corporation. But the project ended abruptly in , when the device was destroyed by fire. Other proposals have surfaced periodically over the intervening years. Sometimes, these features, called pilings, can reach more than 30 meters feet below ground. Which layer do you think lies deeper underground? It is a much deeper layer of sediment, found underneath QyBM.

The last ice age peaked about 20, years ago. Also called glacial age. Usually rivers enter another body of water at their mouths. Also called tidal flat or mudflat. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Society. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service.

If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. Map of Minas Basin. This region travel guide to Minas Basin is a usable article. It gives a good overview of the region, its sights, and how to get in, as well as links to the main destinations, whose articles are similarly well developed.

An adventurous person could use this article, but please feel free to improve it by editing the page. Namespaces Page Discussion. Views Read Edit View history. Main page Travel destinations Star articles What's Nearby? The mud flats at the head of the Bay of Fundy are important staging grounds for an estimated 1 to 2 million shorebirds in late July and early August in this and other adjacent IBAs.

At low tide, vast areas of mud and sand flats, and salt marshes are exposed - the result of the Bay of Fundys tides, which are the highest tides in the world up to 16 m. The rich red-brown mud harbors millions of Fundy mud shrimp, a vital food source for the Semipalmated Sandpiper.