CHESAPEAKE BAY NOTES

Estuary:  Body of water where fresh and salt water mixes  Largest of the 130 estuaries in the United States

Size of the Chesapeake Bay: Virginia Maryland Pennsylvania DE NJ 200 miles in length 3.4 miles to 25 miles wide Volume: 15 Trillion Gallons Depth Range: feet Average Depth: 21 feet 11,684 miles of shoreline

Watershed:  An area of land that drains to a particular river, lake, bay or other body of water

Bay Creation - Meteor  A meteor crashed, setting the stage for the bay to be formed  The resultant crater is called the Exmore Crater

Bay Creation - Glaciers  The movement and melting of the glacier during the last ice age caused the creation of the streams and rivers that make up the Chesapeake Bay

Salinity of the Bay:  Salinity of the bay increases as you head south  Freshwater comes in from the rivers so the top is essentially freshwater Increasing Salinity

Composition of Water:  Sources of dissolved materials:  Decomposition of dead organisms  Live organisms releasing compounds directly  Organic and inorganic materials enter through tributaries

Dissolved Gases:  Dissolved oxygen is affected by temperature and salinity  Dissolved carbon dioxide is necessary for plants and comes from respiration of organisms  Nitrogen and phosphorus are also necessary for organisms, however, due to run-off they can be in poisonous concentrations

Food Web:  Most energy and largest volume of organisms found at the bottom  Less and less energy is transferred through each trophic level because it is used or lost as heat  Contaminants ingested by each level get passed along in increasing amounts through the food web