Chesapeake Bay Fast Facts

I. At a glance

- The Chesapeake Bay is the 2^nd largest estuary in the world

- It is 195 miles long

- Approximately 4 – 30 miles wide

- Chesipiooc: native American word meaning “great shellfish bay”

- John Smith said “best port in the world”

- Ecosystem:

i. 100,000 streams and rivers in the ecosystem

ii. Relationships

1. Small to large creatures

2. Forest and wetlands filter sediments and pollutants

iii. 16 million people live in the watershed

- Watershed:

i. Definition: Area of land that drains into a specific basin

ii. Half of Chesapeake Bay water comes from the Atlantic ocean

iii. Half the water comes from 64,000 square miles worth of drainage. (Watershed)

iv. NY, PA, WV, DE, MD, VI, District of Columbia is the watershed area.

v. Interdependence

vi. Pre-1800s oysters so abundant that the reefs served a navigational hazard.

II. The bay as a resource

- Fishing/Oystering

i. 1920’s-1970’s av. Annual oyster catch was about 27 million lb. of meat a year

ii. 1983-1992 86 million lb. of blue crab/year

iii. More than half of the nations blue crabs still come from the Bay

iv. Menhaden (fish)

- Recreation:

i. 200,000 pleasure craft entered the bay in 1993

ii. Aprox. 1 million anglers per year come to the Bay

- Commercial

i. 2 of the nations 5 most important ports sit on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay

1. Hampton roads complex (Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport news)

2. Baltimore

a. Leading exporter of cars in the nation

b. Industry

ii. Coal from Appalachia

iii. Shipbuilding 

- Natural Habitat

BIRDS

1. Tundra Swans

2. Canada Geese

3. Duck (canvasback, pintails)

4. Eiders, ruddy duck

5. Bald Eagles

6. Nations largest population of osprey

FISH

7. White and yellow perch

8.  Striped bass (rockfish)

9.  Herring

10.  Shad

11.  When it is warm enough: bluefish, weakfish, croaker, menhaden, and flounder, spot….

PLANTS

12. Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV’s)

13. Trees

- Problems

i. Over harvesting and loss of habitat

ii. Disease

iii. Hypoxia: low dissolved oxygen levels

iv. Anoxia: Absence of dissolved oxygen

v. SAV plight

vi. Must start to look at these problems from an ecosystem prospective.

Topography/Geology:

- Age:

i. Less than 10 thousand years old

ii. Going through constant change

iii. Pleistocene epoch (1 million years ago)

iv. Glaciers retreat and move north and south repeatedly

1. Sea level rise and fall

v. 18,000 years ago last great ice age

vi. 3,000 years ago the Bay become roughly what we know it today

vii. Sea level rose to eventually flood the Susquehanna river valley

- Topography:

i. 4400 miles of shoreline

ii. 4 miles wide near Annapolis

iii. 30 miles wide near Potomac

iv. 2300 sq. miles of water

1. Add the tributaries and the number doubles

2. 18 trillion gallons of water

3. Av. Depth is 27 feet

v. Geographic regions within the watershed

1. Watershed encompasses the Piedmont plateau, Appalachian province, and the coastal plain

vi. Atlantic Coastal Plain

1. Flat low land area. Max elevation of 300 feet

2. Crystalline bedrock covered with sand, clay, gravel

3. 15-90 miles inland

4. Fall line b/w piedmont plateau and coastal plain

5. This is the region that the bay actually sits in

vii. Piedmont Plateau

1. From the fall line to the Appalachian mtns.

2. Area is split by Parrs ridge

a. East: slate, schist, marble, granite

b. West: sandstones, shale, siltstones

i. Underlayed by limestone.

ii. Potomac: calcium, magnesium

viii. Appalachian Province

1. Sandstone, siltstone, shale, limestone

2. Mountains, valleys

3. Coal

4. Susquehanna

a. All the way to Cooperstown, NY

Where the water comes from designates what kind of water (chemically speaking) enters the bay.