Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Maine's many islands- some 4,600 of them- boost productivity in the gulf by creating local upwelling of nutrients
from the sea bottom.
As coast dwellers know, tides vary in height during different times of the month and year, and this variation
also relates largely to the Earth-moon celestial relationship, with the added influence of the Sun. At 40 percent
that of the moon, the sun's effect on tides is relatively large, given that it is so much farther away. Every two
weeks, the sun, moon, and Earth are aligned, maximizing their combined effect. The result is the highest tides
of the month—the spring tides. (The term does not apply to the seasons but derives from the Anglo-Saxon
word “springen”—to leap up.) Conversely, at the first and last quarter of the moon, the solar and lunar influen-
