Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Atlantic white-sided dolphins plunge through offshore waters, which are host to more than a dozen species of ceta-
ceans.
Although these fronts may shift positions seasonally, or sometimes daily, they are associated with the con-
tinental shelf edge, which is also marked by a series of submarine canyons. The Gully is the largest, plunging
to 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) at its deepest point, where it separates the Sable Island Bank from Banquereau
Bank. It is unique among shelf-edge canyons of the eastern Canadian margin because of its great depth, steep
slopes, and extension far back onto the continental shelf.
What truly sets the Gully apart, however, is the higher density and the greater diversity of whales. The Gully
is one of the most important habitats for cetaceans on the east coast of Canada, and perhaps globally. Eight to
thirteen species are regularly spotted there. The area is of prime importance for those species that have deep
water distributions, especially to the northern bottlenose whale, which has a range limited to the North Atlant-
ic.
PEOPLE OF THE BAY:
Powhatan to Today
WHEN THE
English adventurers led by John Smith arrived in Virginia in 1607, they found an already well-es-
tablished culture: the Powhatan Confederacy. This Algonquian-speaking people occupied the land surrounding
the tidewaters of Chesapeake Bay, living in small villages of forty to two hundred persons and in seasonal
hunting camps. Most villages were located along the floodplains of the region's major rivers, the James, York,
and Rappahannock, where the rich alluvial soils fertilized their crops of corn, beans, and squash, and the loca-
tion on low terraces gave them easy access to the waterways with its rich resources. Without this well-estab-
lished food-producing system of bread, corn, fish, and game, the newcomers, by their own admission, “had all
perished.”
The indigenous people of the Chesapeake region practiced shifting cultivation, clearing new fields each year
and moving their sapling-and-mat houses when fertility of the old fields ran out. The houses were durable
