Tides and Currents of the Bay of Fundy
...ed water to flow through). Those are the two key reasons that the tides in the Bay are so high. However, there are plenty of similar shaped bays around the world that do not have tides like Fundy’s. With the tidal waters being constricted by the funnel shaped bay, the water is forced to pile up on itself because it simply has nowhere else to go. The tide water enters at the Bay's widest and deepest point, at the mouth, which is approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) wide and between 120 and 215 metres (400-700 feet) deep. It is then forced through the narrowing sides and the shallowing of the bottom which causes incoming tides to be forced higher as they approach the head of the bay. The wave continues into the rivers that empty into the Bay with substantial force and speed. This natural experience is known as a tidal bore (which looks like a wave travelling against the flow of the river). A tidal bore forms when as incoming tides rushes up a river developing a steep forward slope due to the resistance to the tide’s advance by the river, which is flowing in the opposite direction. As the tidal bore arrives, it scours the riverbank, sometimes uprooting small bushes, and carrying them downstream. When the tidal bore has passed, what's left behind is the clay-based riverbed, now churned up. Tidal bores are common in most rivers around the Bay of Fundy and vary in size from a ripple to a large peak. Seeing as the Minas Basin is located at the tip of the funnel it has the highest tides recorded in the world. With each receding tide, it leaves hundreds of thousands of acres of ocean bottom exposed. This area can often be 2 or 3 miles wide in places. Along the Fundy's coast there are many fossils that have been exposed by the erosion action each year. Recent findings have included some of the earliest dinosaurs know to exist. The ocean bottom exposed is also teaming with life and is a feeding ground for many birds. Between 75-95% of the world’s population of sandpipers depend upon the Fundy mudflats for their survival. They feed on the small shrimp-like crustaceans in the mud of the exposed tidal zone in the late July and early August. The strong movement of the tides at the mouth of the Bay stirs up the ocean bottom and the life that it holds. The moving tides of the bay also create blooms of plankton and create nutrient rich waters that are especially attractive to many types of whales. It makes the Bay an ideal place for many large mammals, like whales, to feed. Plankton is organisms that drift or float with the currents and waves. Many different sea creatures depend upon plankton to live. The amount of nutrients in the water also helps other marine life to reproduce quickly. St. Martins' sea caves, New Brunswick Hopewell Rocks at Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick The tides of the Bay of Fundy have also left some noticeable evidence of its power with many cliffs, islands and caves being created by the turbulence of these tides. There have been sea caves carved out by the endless tidal action at St. Martin’s. You can explore these caves 2 hours before or 2 hours after low tide .The tidal currents have also carved and sculptured towering statues of red stone at Hopewell Rocks millions and millions of years ago. They are even older then the Canadian Rockies. They are the single most popular tourist attraction in all of New Brunswick. Today, much of the land has been corroded by the force of the Fundy tides which have torn up the shoreline depositing tonnes of soil each day, creating salt marshes and alluvial plains. The Bay of Fundy is actually getting deeper as portions of the bottom are eroded by these strong tidal currents. It is possible that bottom trawling (A fishing line, often extended a mile or more dragged at the bottom of the sea to gather forms of marine life from the sea bottom.) may be breaking through the thin and fragile gravel sea-floor surface and facilitating erosion of underlying muds. However, it is also possible that deepening could be the result of natural process, as the bay is still relatively young geologically speaking at only 9,000 years or so. The movement of the tides can cause great currents (unidirectional flow of water), mainly as it moves around land points or peninsulas that extend into the Bay. When you walk out to the end of the peninsulas you can actually see and hear...