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82-771: Sandy Point State Park is a public recreation area on Chesapeake Bay , located at the western end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Anne Arundel County , Maryland . The state park is known for the popularity of its swimming beach, with annual attendance exceeding one million visitors. The park grounds include the Sandy Point Farmhouse , which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . The historic Sandy Point Shoal Lighthouse stands in about five feet of water some 1,000 yards (910 m) east of

164-449: A noun, that it must be a purely linguistic characterization. Anthropological linguists have conversely argued the strong connection between animacy and items viewed as having spiritual importance. Another important distinction involves the contrast between nouns marked as proximate and those marked as obviative . Proximate nouns are those deemed most central or important to the discourse, while obviative nouns are those less important to

246-459: A single word. Ex: ( Menominee ) paehtāwāēwesew "He is heard by higher powers" ( paeht - 'hear', - āwāē - 'spirit', - wese - passivizer, - w third-person subject) or ( Plains Cree ) kāstāhikoyahk "it frightens us". These languages have been extensively studied by Leonard Bloomfield , Ives Goddard , and others. Algonquian nouns have an animate/inanimate contrast: some nouns are classed as animate , while all other nouns are inanimate . There

328-479: Is a growing industry in the bay. Oyster aquaculture is passive in that the bay provides all the natural oyster food needed, making it an environmentally friendly practice in contrast to other kinds of fish farming. Oyster farms provide jobs as well as a natural effort for filtering excess nutrients from the water in an effort to reduce the effects of eutrophication pollution (too much algae). The Chesapeake Bay Program promotes oyster restoration projects to reduce

410-471: Is a main feature for tourists who visit Maryland and Virginia each year. Fishing, crabbing, swimming, boating, kayaking, and sailing are extremely popular activities enjoyed on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. As a result, tourism has a notable impact on Maryland's economy. One report suggested that Annapolis was an appealing spot for families, water sports and boating. Commentator Terry Smith spoke about

492-415: Is approximately 20 miles (32 km) long; it has trestle bridges as well as two stretches of two-mile-long (3.2 km) tunnels that allow unimpeded shipping; the bridge is supported by four 5.25-acre (21,200 m ) man-made islands. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge – Tunnel was opened for two lanes in 1964 and four lanes in 1999. Tides in the Chesapeake Bay exhibit an interesting and unique behavior due to

574-677: Is compatible with the proposal from J.P. Denny (1991) that Proto-Algonquian people may have moved east from the Plateau region of Idaho and Oregon or the Rocky Mountain-Great Plains boundary of Montana , dropping off subgroups as people migrated. Goddard also points out that there is clear evidence for pre-historical contact between Eastern Algonquian and Cree-Montagnais, as well as between Cheyenne and Arapaho–Gros Ventre. There has long been especially extensive back-and-forth influence between Cree and Ojibwe. It has been suggested that

656-474: Is experiencing other environmental concerns, including climate change which is causing sea level rise that erodes coastal areas and infrastructure and changes to the marine ecosystem. The word Chesepiooc is an Algonquian word referring to a village 'at a big river'. It is the seventh-oldest surviving English placename in the United States, first applied as Chesepiook by explorers heading north from

738-405: Is ongoing debate over whether there is a semantic significance to the categorization of nouns as animate or inanimate, with scholars arguing for it as either a clearly semantic issue, or a purely syntactic issue, along with a variety of arguments in between. More structurally inclined linguistic scholars have argued that since there is no consistent semantic system for determining the animacy of

820-673: Is sometimes said to have included the extinct Beothuk language of Newfoundland , whose speakers were both in geographic proximity to Algonquian speakers and who share DNA in common with the Algonquian-speaking Miꞌkmaq . However, linguistic evidence is scarce and poorly recorded, and it is unlikely that reliable evidence of a connection can be found. The Algonquian language family is known for its complex polysynthetic morphology and sophisticated verb system. Statements that take many words to say in English can be expressed with

902-652: Is spanned twice, in Maryland by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Sandy Point (near Annapolis ) to Kent Island and in Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel connecting Virginia Beach to Cape Charles . Known for both its beauty and bounty, the bay has become "emptier", with fewer crabs, oysters and watermen (fishermen) since the mid-20th century. Nutrient pollution and urban runoff have been identified as major components of impaired water quality in

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984-670: The Central Algonquian groups are not genetic groupings but rather areal groupings. Although these areal groups often do share linguistic features, these commonalities are usually attributed to language contact . Paul Proulx has argued that this traditional view is incorrect, and that Central Algonquian (in which he includes the Plains Algonquian languages) is a genetic subgroup, with Eastern Algonquian consisting of several different subgroups. However, this classification scheme has failed to gain acceptance from other specialists in

1066-708: The Chesapeake Bay impact crater and much later the Susquehanna River valley. The bay was formed starting about 10,000 years ago when rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age flooded the Susquehanna River valley. Parts of the bay, especially the Calvert County, Maryland , coastline, are lined by cliffs composed of deposits from receding waters millions of years ago. These cliffs, generally known as Calvert Cliffs , are famous for their fossils , especially fossilized shark teeth, which are commonly found washed up on

1148-473: The Fourteenth Amendment to state beaches and other recreational facilities. The park offers swimming beaches, fishing, crabbing, hiking, wildlife viewing, nature center, picnicking, marina store, and boat rentals. The adjacent Corcoran Woods forest preserve includes four miles (6.4 km) of hiking trails. The historic Sandy Point Farmhouse may be viewed from the main park road and is only open to

1230-623: The Roanoke Colony into a Chesapeake tributary in 1585 or 1586. The name may also refer to the Chesapeake people or the Chesepian, a Native American tribe who inhabited the area now known as South Hampton Roads in the U.S. state of Virginia. They occupied an area that is now the Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach areas. In 2005, Algonquian linguist Blair Rudes "helped to dispel one of

1312-415: The blue crab . Birds include ospreys , great blue herons , bald eagles , and peregrine falcons , the last two of which were threatened by DDT ; their numbers plummeted but have risen in recent years. The piping plover is a near threatened species that inhabits the wetlands. Larger fish such as Atlantic sturgeon , varieties of sharks, and stingrays visit the Chesapeake Bay. The waters of

1394-737: The "Battle of the Capes", Cape Charles and Cape Henry ) in 1781, during which the French fleet defeated the Royal Navy in the decisive naval battle of the American Revolutionary War . The French victory enabled General George Washington and his French allies under the Comte de Rochambeau to march down from New York and bottle up a British army under Lord Cornwallis from the North and South Carolinas at

1476-483: The "Eastern Great Lakes" languages – what Goddard has called "Core Central", e.g., Ojibwe–Potawatomi, Shawnee, Sauk–Fox–Kickapoo, and Miami-Illinois (but not Cree–Montagnais or Menominee) – may also constitute their own genetic grouping within Algonquian. They share certain intriguing lexical and phonological innovations. However, this theory has not yet been fully fleshed out and is still considered conjectural. Algonquian

1558-703: The Algonquian languages is their direct-inverse (also known as hierarchical ) morphosyntactic alignment , distinguishing between an unmarked voice where the subject outranks the object in a person hierarchy and a marked voice where the opposite relation obtains. Because Algonquian languages were some of the first with which Europeans came into contact in North America, the language family has given many words to English . Many eastern and midwestern U.S. states have names of Algonquian origin ( Massachusetts , Connecticut , Illinois , Michigan , Wisconsin , etc.), as do many cities: Milwaukee , Chicago , et al. Ottawa ,

1640-450: The Algonquian languages. Instead, the commonly accepted subgrouping scheme is that proposed by Ives Goddard (1994). The essence of this proposal is that Proto-Algonquian originated with people to the west who then moved east, although Goddard did not attempt to identify a specific western urheimat for Proto-Algonquian in his 1994 paper. By this scenario, Blackfoot was the first language to branch off, which coincides well with its being

1722-562: The Atlantic Ocean near Norfolk, Virginia , and the capes of Charles and Henry , there is a distinct semi-diurnal tide throughout the lunar month, with small amplitude modulations during spring (new/full moon) vs. neap (one/three quarter moon) tidal periods. The main forcing of the CBBT tides are typical, semi-diurnal ocean tides that the East Coast of the United States experiences. Baltimore, in

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1804-793: The British landed on the west side of the Patuxent at Benedict, Maryland , the Chesapeake Flotilla was scuttled, and the British trekked overland to rout the U.S. Army at Bladensburg and burn the U.S. Capitol in August 1814. A few days later in a "pincer attack", they also sailed up the Potomac River to attack Fort Washington below the National Capital and raided the nearby port town of Alexandria, Virginia . There were so-called " Oyster Wars " in

1886-438: The CBBT site) this can be seen as a lowest intertidal range. Two interesting points that arise from comparing these two sites at opposite ends of the bay are their tidal characteristics - semi-diurnal tide for CBBT and mixed tide for Baltimore (due to resonance in the bay) - and the differences in amplitude (due to dissipation in the bay). The bay is well-known for its seafood, especially blue crabs , clams , and oysters . In

1968-508: The Chesapeake Bay have been regarded as one of the most important nursery areas for sharks along the east coast. Megafaunas such as bull sharks , tiger sharks , scalloped hammerhead sharks , and basking sharks and manta rays are also known to visit. Smaller species of sharks and stingrays that are known to be regular to occasional residents in the bay include the smooth dogfish , spiny dogfish , cownose ray , and bonnethead . Bottlenose dolphins are known to live seasonally/yearly in

2050-458: The Chesapeake Bay include shad , cobia , croaker , and redfish , winter flounder , and summer flounder . Recently, non-native blue catfish have proliferated in tributaries like the James River and may be moving to other areas of the bay. A commercial fishery exists for menhaden , too oily for human consumption but instead used for bait, fish oil, and livestock feed. The Chesapeake Bay

2132-671: The Chesapeake Bay ;... I planned to spend my days boating, eating as many Chesapeake Bay blue crabs as possible and making a little study of Eastern Shore locals. For city folk like me, they're interesting, even exotic –the weather-beaten crabbers and oystermen called "watermen," gentlemen-farmers and sharecroppers, boat builders, antiques dealers – all of whom sound like Southerners with mouthfuls of marbles when they talk. — Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times , 2008 The Chesapeake Bay plays an extremely important role in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania's economies, in addition to

2214-552: The Governor William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial Bridge) between the state capital of Annapolis, Maryland and Matapeake on the Eastern Shore , crossing Kent Island , was constructed 1949–1952. A second, parallel, span was added in 1973. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel , connecting Virginia's Eastern Shore with its mainland (at the metropolitan areas of Virginia Beach , Norfolk , Portsmouth , and Chesapeake ),

2296-427: The amount of nitrogen compounds entering the bay. The bay is famous for its rockfish, a regional name for striped bass . Once on the verge of extinction, rockfish have made a significant comeback because of legislative action that put a moratorium on rockfishing, which allowed the species to re-populate. Rockfish can now be fished in strictly controlled and limited quantities. Other popular recreational fisheries in

2378-457: The area around the mouth of the Susquehanna River is continental in nature, and the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the Susquehanna flats often freeze in winter. It is rare for the surface of the bay to freeze in winter, something that happened most recently in the winter of 1976–77. The Chesapeake Bay is the end point of over 150 rivers and streams. The largest rivers flowing directly into

2460-583: The area's most widely held beliefs: that 'Chesapeake' means something like 'great shellfish bay'. It does not, Rudes said. The name might have actually meant something like 'great water', or it might have just referred to a village location at the bay's mouth." The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary to the North Atlantic, lying between the Delmarva Peninsula to the east and the North American mainland to

2542-513: The assertion that it was as far north as the Chesapeake; most place it in present-day Georgia 's Sapelo Island . In 1573, Pedro Menéndez de Márquez , the governor of Spanish Florida, conducted further exploration of the Chesapeake. In 1570, Spanish Jesuits established the short-lived Ajacan Mission on one of the Chesapeake tributaries in present-day Virginia. The arrival of English colonists under Sir Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert in

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2624-451: The bay are wild rice , various trees like the red maple , loblolly pine and bald cypress , and spartina grass and phragmites . Invasive plants have taken a significant foothold in the bay. Plants such as Phragmites, Purple loosestrife and Japanese stiltgrass have established high levels of permanency in Chesapeake wetlands. Additionally, plants such as Brazilian waterweed , native to South America, have spread to most continents with

2706-690: The bay between 1607 and 1609, resulting in the publication in 1612 back in the British Isles of "A Map of Virginia" . Smith wrote in his journal: "Heaven and earth have never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail , the first designated "all-water" National Historic Trail in the US, was established in 2006 by the National Park Service . The trail follows

2788-456: The bay stressing ecosystems and compounding the decline of shellfish due to overharvesting . Restoration efforts that began in the 1990s have continued into the 21st century and show potential for growth of the native oyster population. The health of the Chesapeake Bay improved in 2015, marking three years of gains over a four-year period. Slight improvements in water quality were observed in 2021, compared to indicators measured in 2020. The bay

2870-700: The bay to cool its reactor. The Chesapeake Bay forms a link in the Intracoastal Waterway , of the bays, sounds and inlets between the off-shore barrier islands and the coastal mainland along the Atlantic coast connecting the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (linking the bay to the north and the Delaware River ) with the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal (linking the bay, to the south, via the Elizabeth River , by

2952-525: The bay's beauty: The water is glassy, smooth and gorgeous, his wake white against the deep blue. That's the problem with the Chesapeake. It's so damned beautiful. One account suggested how the Chesapeake attracts people: You see them everywhere on Maryland's Eastern Shore, the weekend sailors. They are unmistakable with their deep tans, their baggy shorts, their frayed polo shirts, their Top-Siders worn without socks. Some may not even own their own boats, much less win regattas, but they are inexorably drawn to

3034-417: The bay's dead zones were estimated to kill 75,000 tons of bottom-dwelling clams and worms each year, weakening the base of the estuary's food chain and robbing the blue crab in particular of a primary food source. Crabs are sometimes observed to amass on shore to escape pockets of oxygen-poor water, a behavior known as a "crab jubilee". Hypoxia results in part from large algal blooms , which are nourished by

3116-515: The bay, in order of discharge, are: For more information on Chesapeake Bay rivers, see the List of Chesapeake Bay rivers . The Chesapeake Bay is home to numerous fauna that either migrate to the bay at some point during the year or live there year-round. There are over 300 species of fish and numerous shellfish and crab species. Some of these include the Atlantic menhaden , striped bass , American eel , eastern oyster , Atlantic horseshoe crab , and

3198-492: The bay. It is presumed that the Chesapeake Bay was once inhabited by Paleoindians 11,000 years ago. For thousands of years, Native American societies lived in villages of wooden longhouses close to water bodies where they fished and farmed the land. Agricultural products included beans, corn, tobacco, and squash. Villages often lasted between 10 and 20 years before being abandoned due to local resources such as firewood running out or soil depleting. To produce enough food, labor

3280-440: The bay. The Chesapeake Bay is also home to a diverse flora, both land and aquatic. Common submerged aquatic vegetation includes eelgrass and widgeon grass . A report in 2011 suggested that information on underwater grasses would be released, because "submerged grasses provide food and habitat for a number of species, adding oxygen to the water and improving water clarity." Other vegetation that makes its home in other parts of

3362-427: The bay. There have been unconfirmed sightings of humpback whales in recent years. Endangered North Atlantic right whale and fin , and minke and sei whales have also been sighted within and in the vicinity of the bay. A male manatee visited the bay several times between 1994 and 2011, even though the area is north of the species' normal range. The manatee, recognizable due to distinct markings on its body,

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3444-514: The bay. Water that was once clear for meters is now so turbid that a wader may lose sight of his feet while his knees are still dry. Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( / æ l ˈ ɡ ɒ ŋ k ( w ) i ə n / al- GONG -k(w)ee-ən ; also Algonkian ) are a family of Indigenous languages of the Americas and most of the languages in the Algic language family are included in

3526-456: The beaches next to the cliffs. Scientists' Cliffs is a beach community in Calvert County named for the desire to create a retreat for scientists when the community was founded in 1935. Much of the bay is shallow. At the point where the Susquehanna River flows into the bay, the average depth is 30 feet (9 m), although this soon diminishes to an average of 10 feet (3 m) southeast of

3608-636: The cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth to the Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound in North Carolina and further to the Sea Islands of Georgia). A busy shipping channel (dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since the 1850s) runs the length of the bay, is an important transit route for large vessels entering or leaving the Port of Baltimore , and further north through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to

3690-445: The city of Havre de Grace, Maryland , to about 35 feet (11 m) just north of Annapolis. On average, the depth of the bay is 21 feet (6.4 m), including tributaries; over 24 percent of the bay is less than 6 ft (2 m) deep. Because the bay is an estuary, it has fresh water, salt water and brackish water. Brackish water has three salinity zones: oligohaline, mesohaline, and polyhaline . The freshwater zone runs from

3772-492: The development of the skipjack (such as the Helen Virginia ), the state boat of Maryland, which is the only remaining working boat type in the United States still under sail power. Other characteristic bay-area workboats include sail-powered boats such as the log canoe , the pungy , the bugeye , and the motorized Chesapeake Bay deadrise , the state boat of Virginia. In addition to harvesting wild oysters, oyster farming

3854-491: The discourse. There are personal pronouns which distinguish three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), inclusive and exclusive first person plural , and proximate and obviative third persons. Verbs are divided into four classes: transitive verbs with an animate object (abbreviated "TA"), transitive verbs with an inanimate object ("TI"), intransitive verbs with an animate subject ("AI"), and intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject ("II"). A very notable feature of

3936-541: The east and the Harford County western shore near Romney Creek) and 30 miles (48 km) at its widest (just south of the mouth of the Potomac River which divides Maryland from Virginia). Total shoreline including tributaries is 11,684 miles (18,804 km), circumnavigating a surface area of 4,479 square miles (11,601 km ). Average depth is 21 feet (6.4 m), reaching a maximum of 174 feet (53 m). The bay

4018-475: The east coast of North America to the Rocky Mountains . The proto-language from which all of the languages of the family descend, Proto-Algonquian , was spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. There is no scholarly consensus about where this language was spoken. This subfamily of around 30 languages is divided into three groups according to geography: Plains , Central , and Eastern Algonquian . Of

4100-894: The ecosystem. The nature-based recreation of wildlife, boating, and ecotourism are dependent on enforcement of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which regulates pollutant discharges and supports related pollution control programs. In 2006, "roughly eight million wildlife watchers spent $ 636 million, $ 960 million, and $ 1.4 billion in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania" according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation . In colonial times, simple cooking techniques were used to create one pot meals like ham and potato casserole , clam chowder, or stews with common ingredients like oysters, chicken or venison. When John Smith landed in Chesapeake in 1608, he wrote: "The fish were so thick, we attempted to catch them with frying pans". Common regional ingredients in

4182-567: The entirety of the bay in about 3.3 days; by 1988 this time had increased to 325 days. The harvest's gross value decreased 88% from 1982 to 2007. One report suggested the bay had fewer oysters in 2008 than 25 years earlier. The primary problem is overharvesting . Lax government regulations allow anyone with a license to remove oysters from state-owned beds, and although limits are set, they are not strongly enforced. The overharvesting of oysters has made it difficult for them to reproduce, which requires close proximity to one another. A second cause for

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4264-543: The geometry of the bay permits for a resonant period of 1.46 days. A good example of how the different Chesapeake Bay sites experience different tides can be seen in the tidal predictions published by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (see figure at right). At the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel (CBBT) site, which lies at the southernmost point of the bay where it meets

4346-562: The group. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Indigenous Ojibwe language (Chippewa), which is a senior member of the Algonquian language family. The term Algonquin has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik ( pronounced [ɛlæˈɡomoɡwik] ), "they are our relatives/allies". Speakers of Algonquian languages stretch from

4428-446: The habitat for much of the bay's animal life. Beds of eelgrass , the dominant variety in the southern Chesapeake Bay, have shrunk by more than half there since the early 1970s. Overharvesting, pollution, sedimentation and disease have turned much of the bay's bottom into a muddy wasteland. The principal sources of nutrient pollution in the bay are surface runoff from farms, as well as runoff from urban and suburban areas. About half of

4510-458: The help of aquarium owners, who often dump the contents of their aquariums into nearby lakes and streams. It is highly invasive and has the potential to flourish in the low-salinity tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Dense stands of Brazilian waterweed can restrict water movement, trap sediment and affect water quality. Various local K-12 schools in the Maryland and Virginia region often have programs that cultivate native bay grasses and plant them in

4592-564: The late 16th century to found a colony, later settled at Roanoke Island (off the present-day coast of North Carolina ) for the Virginia Company , marked the first time that the English approached the gates to the Chesapeake Bay between the capes of Cape Charles and Cape Henry . Three decades later, in 1607, Europeans again entered the bay. Captain John Smith of England explored and mapped

4674-566: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the mid-20th century, oyster harvesting rivaled the crab industry among Chesapeake watermen, a dwindling breed whose skipjacks and other workboats were supplanted by recreational craft in the latter part of the century. In the 1960s, the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant on the historic Calvert Cliffs in Calvert County on the Western Shore of Maryland began using water from

4756-536: The leadership of a central chief. In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano , (1485–1528), in service of the French crown , (famous for sailing through and thereafter naming the entrance to New York Bay as the " Verrazzano Narrows ", including now in the 20th century, a suspension bridge also named for him ) sailed past the Chesapeake, but did not enter the bay. Spanish explorer Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón sent an expedition out from Hispaniola in 1525 that reached

4838-450: The local cuisine of Chesapeake included terrapins , smoked hams, blue crab, shellfish, local fish, game meats and various species of waterfowl. Blue crab continues to be an especially popular regional specialty. In the 1970s, the Chesapeake Bay was found to contain one of the planet's first identified marine dead zones , where waters were so depleted of oxygen that they were unable to support life, resulting in massive fish kills . In 2010

4920-465: The middle of the 20th century, the bay supported 9,000 full-time watermen, according to one account. Today, the body of water is less productive than it used to be because of runoff from urban areas (mostly on the Western Shore) and farms (especially on the Eastern Shore and in the Susquehanna River watershed), over-harvesting, and invasion of foreign species . The plentiful oyster harvests led to

5002-480: The most divergent language of Algonquian. In west-to-east order, the subsequent branchings were: This historical reconstruction accords best with the observed levels of divergence within the family, whereby the most divergent languages are found furthest west (since they constitute the earliest branchings during eastern migration), and the shallowest subgroupings are found furthest to the east (Eastern Algonquian, and arguably Core Central). This general west-to-east order

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5084-583: The mouth of the Rappahannock River . Salinity there ranges from 1.07% to 1.8%. The polyhaline zone is the saltiest zone, and some of the water can be as salty as sea water. It runs from the mouth of the Rappahannock River to the mouth of the bay. The salinity ranges from 1.87% to 3.6%. (3.6% is as salty as the ocean.) The climate of the area surrounding the bay is primarily humid subtropical , with hot, very humid summers and cold to mild winters. Only

5166-516: The mouth of the Susquehanna River to north Baltimore . The oligohaline zone has very little salt. Salinity varies from 0.5  ppt (parts per thousand) to 10 ppt, and freshwater species can survive there. The north end of the oligohaline zone is north Baltimore and the south end is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The mesohaline zone has a medium amount of salt and runs from the Bay Bridge to

5248-513: The mouths of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays . It may have been the first European expedition to explore parts of the Chesapeake Bay, which the Spaniards called "Bahía de Santa María" ("Bay of St. Mary") or "Bahía de Madre de Dios."("Bay of the Mother of God") De Ayllón established a short-lived Spanish mission settlement, San Miguel de Gualdape , in 1526 along the Atlantic coast . Many scholars doubt

5330-586: The nature of the topography (both horizontal and vertical shape), wind-driven circulation, and how the bay interacts with oceanic tides. Research into the peculiar behavior of tides both at the northern and southern extents of the bay began in the late 1970s. One study noted sea level fluctuations at periods of 5 days, driven by sea level changes at the bay's mouth on the Atlantic coast and local lateral winds, and 2.5 days, caused by resonant oscillations driven by local longitudinal winds, while another study later found that

5412-407: The northern portion of the bay, experiences a noticeable modulation to form its mixed tidal nature during spring vs. neap tides. Spring tides, when the sun-earth-moon system forms a line, cause the largest tidal amplitudes during lunar monthly tidal variations. In contrast, neap tides, when the sun-earth-moon system forms a right angle, are muted, and in a semi-diurnal tidal system (such as that seen at

5494-536: The nutrient pollutant loads in the bay are generated by manure and poultry litter. Extensive use of lawn fertilizers and air pollution from motor vehicles and power plants are also significant nutrient sources. One particularly harmful source of toxicity is Pfiesteria piscicida , which can affect both fish and humans. Pfiesteria caused a small regional panic in the late 1990s when a series of large blooms started killing large numbers of fish while giving swimmers mysterious rashes; nutrient runoff from chicken farms

5576-411: The nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen . The algae prevents sunlight from reaching the bottom of the bay while alive and deoxygenates the bay's water when it dies and rots. Soil erosion and runoff of sediment into the bay, exacerbated by devegetation, construction and the prevalence of pavement in urban and suburban areas, also block vital sunlight. The resulting loss of aquatic vegetation has depleted

5658-403: The oyster depletion is that the drastic increase in human population caused a sharp increase in pollution flowing into the bay. The bay's oyster industry has also suffered from two diseases: MSX and Dermo . The depletion of oysters has had a particularly harmful effect on the quality of the bay. Oysters serve as natural water filters, and their decline has further reduced the water quality of

5740-578: The park's beach. In 1948, the state purchased the site of a ferry landing that had served the Chesapeake Bay Ferry System on its run across the bay to Kent Island at what is now Matapeake State Park . The park opened in 1952 with racially segregated beaches and bathhouses which led to litigation in 1955. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the park to become integrated in Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City v. Dawson , which ultimately extended

5822-505: The ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia on the Delaware River . During the later half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the bay was plied by passenger steamships and packet boat lines connecting the various cities on it, notably the Baltimore Steam Packet Company ("Old Bay Line"). In the later 20th century, a series of road crossings were built. One, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (also known as

5904-538: The public on special occasions. In January, the park hosts the annual Maryland State Police Polar Bear Plunge , where participants run into the Chesapeake Bay to raise money for Special Olympics . Chesapeake Bay The bay is approximately 200 miles (320 km) long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. It is 2.8 miles (4.5 km) wide at its narrowest (between Kent County's Plum Point near Newtown in

5986-522: The route of Smith's historic 17th-century voyage. Because of economic hardships and civil strife in the "Mother Land", there was a mass migration of southern English Cavaliers and their servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675, to both of the new colonies of the Province of Virginia and the Province of Maryland . The Chesapeake Bay was the site of the Battle of the Chesapeake (also known as

6068-548: The runoff of residential, farm and industrial waste throughout the watershed. A 2010 report criticized Amish farmers in Pennsylvania for raising cows with inadequate controls on the manure that they generate. Farms in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania generate large quantities of manure that washes into tributaries of the bay. The pollution entering the bay has multiple components that contribute to algal blooms, principally

6150-618: The siege of Battle of Yorktown in Yorktown, Virginia . Their marching route from Newport, Rhode Island through Connecticut, New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware to the "Head of Elk" by the Susquehanna River along the shores and also partially sailing down the bay to Virginia . It is also the subject of a designated National Historic Trail as the Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route . The bay would again see conflict during War of 1812 . During

6232-491: The state's low-lying coastal plain , with sedimentary cliffs to the west, and flat islands, winding creeks and marshes to the east. The large rivers entering the bay from the west have broad mouths and are extensions of the main ria for miles up the course of each river. The bay's geology, its present form, and its very location were created by a bolide impact event at the end of the Eocene (about 35.5 million years ago), forming

6314-431: The three, only Eastern Algonquian constitutes a true genetic subgroup. The languages are listed following the classifications of Goddard (1996) and Mithun (1999). Extinct languages are marked with †, and endangered languages are noted as such. For dialects and subdialects, consult the separate main articles for each of the three divisions. Eastern Algonquian is a true genetic subgrouping. The Plains Algonquian and

6396-479: The west. It is the ria , or drowned valley, of the Susquehanna River , meaning that it was the alluvial plain where the river flowed when the sea level was lower. It is not a fjord , because the Laurentide Ice Sheet never reached as far south as the northernmost point on the bay. North of Baltimore , the western shore borders the hilly Piedmont region of Maryland; south of the city the bay lies within

6478-448: The year of 1813, from their base on Tangier Island , British naval forces under the command of Admiral George Cockburn raided several towns on the shores of the Chesapeake, treating the bay as if it were a "British Lake". The Chesapeake Bay Flotilla , a fleet of shallow-draft armed barges under the command of U.S. Navy Commodore Joshua Barney , was assembled to stall British shore raids and attacks. After months of harassment by Barney,

6560-409: Was blamed for the growth. While the bay's salinity is ideal for oysters and the oyster fishery was at one time the bay's most commercially viable, the population has in the last fifty years been devastated. Maryland once had roughly 200,000 acres (810 km ) of oyster reefs. In 2008 there were about 36,000 acres (150 km ). It has been estimated that in pre-colonial times, oysters could filter

6642-560: Was divided with men hunting while the women supervised the village's farming. All village members took part in the harvesting of fish and shellfish from the local bodies of water. As time went on, communities around the Chesapeake Bay formed confederations such as the Powhatan , the Piscataway , and the Nanticoke . Each of these confederations consisted of a collection of smaller tribes falling under

6724-419: Was nicknamed "Chessie" after a legendary sea monster that was allegedly sighted in the bay during the 20th century. The same manatee has been spotted as far north as Rhode Island , and was the first manatee known to travel so far north. Other manatees are occasionally seen in the bay and its tributaries, which contain sea grasses that are part of the manatee's diet. Loggerhead turtles are known to visit

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