#GRAND BANKS BOATS LOST TO TIME SERIES#

It was the European hunger for cod that built Boston and turned New England into an international commercial center by the 18th century. By the mid-16th century, sixty per cent of all the fish eaten in Europe was cod, and that remained the case for over two hundred years. вЂњFishing opened up in Newfoundland with the enthusiasm of a gold rush,вЂќ writes Mark Kurlansky in Cod, his book about a fish that changed the world. In 1605, English colonists renamed it for St. Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano discovered Georges Bank in the early 1500s and named it Armelline Shoals after a papal tax collector. Cabot named the place New Found Land and claimed it in the name of England. A legend swiftly grew that the fish were so abundant that they could be scooped out of the water in baskets.

Searching for a northern spice route, Cabot instead found 1000 Basque fishing vessels, rocky shores ideal for salting and drying fish, and waters teeming with fish. The Basques kept the location of their fishing grounds a secret for over 500 years, but in 1497 Giovanni Caboto, a Genovese known by the Anglicized version of his name, John Cabot, undertook a voyage for Henry VII of England. They had salt, which they used to preserve the fish, and by the year 1000 they had established an international trade in salted cod. The first Europeans to discover these rich fishing grounds were the Basques, a fiercely independent people from northern Spain. Strong tidal currents sweeping over gravel beds on the eastern edge of Georges Bank create ideal spawning grounds for herring, whose eggs are laid on the bottom and require clean, oxygenated water to hatch. For instance, a rough sea bottom provides juvenile cod with protection from predators and also shelters the smaller organisms which are their optimal food sources. Coarse sediment, originally transported to the bank by glaciers, has been shaped by changes in sea level and the ongoing action of tidal and storm currents to form a variety of marine habitats. Their craggy walls, out of reach of fishing gear, house many kinds of fish and shellfish. Fifteen huge canyons descend from the southern half of the Bank. The structural diversity of the seabed plays an important part in the abundance and distribution of different marine species. The combination of tides and the Labrador current create a clockwise flow around the perimeter, circulating eggs and larvae throughout the Bank. Georges Bank is home to more than 100 species of fish, as well as many species of marine birds, whales, dolphins and porpoises. They feed the zooplankton, which are then eaten by the larvae of vast numbers of fish such as cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder. On Georges Bank, phytoplankton grow three times faster than on any other continental shelf. The mingling of the two currents, along with sunlight penetrating the shallow waters, creates an ideal environment for tiny sea creatures-phytoplankton (photosynthetic algae) and zooplankton (tiny free-floating creatures such as krill)-to flourish, attracting an entire ecosystem of marine animals. The cold, nutrient-rich Labrador current sweeps over most of the submarine plateau, and meets the warmer Gulf stream on its eastern edge. Georges Bank is a particularly productive continental shelf. Why is the Fishing So Good at Georges Bank? They died out around 6,000 years ago, when the water level rose further to submerge the island and turn it into Georges Bank.ДЄ prime breeding and feeding grounds for fish and shellfish, in particular cod, haddock, herring, flounder, lobster, scallops, and clam, these North American banks are one of the worldвЂ™s most important fishing resources.

It was home to many large prehistoric mammals, including walruses, mastodons, and giant sloths, traces of which are sometimes found in fishing nets. During the last Ice Age, when the sea was much lower, Georges Bank was part of the North American mainland.ДЄbout 11,500 years ago, the sea rose high enough to isolate the area, creating Georges Island. Georges Bank is more than 100 m higher than the sea floor of the Gulf of Maine that lies just north of it. It is 120 km off the coast of New England and is larger than the state of Massachusetts. Georges Bank is an oval-shaped bank, 240 km long by 120 km wide, that lies at the southwestern end of this chain. The northernmost banks off Newfoundland and Labrador are called the Grand Banks.

#GRAND BANKS BOATS LOST TO TIME SERIES#

A series of immense banks stretches from Newfoundland to southern New England on the edge of the North American continental shelf. A bank is a huge shoal-a plateau submerged in relatively shallow ocean waters.

Grand banks boats lost to time