Apex of the New York Bight EarthCache
Apex of the New York Bight
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Waypoint 9 of 10 on Going Coastal’s NY-NJ Harbor Estuary EarthDiscovery Trail in Liberty State Park, caches developed by Going Coastal, Inc. (www.goingcoastal.org) as a special project in affiliation with Groundspeak and support from the NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program and the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission.
The NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Earthcache Discovery Trail is meant to help visitors develop a better understanding of the Estuary, make connections between earth and environmental science, and foster stewardship.
Do you know what a “bight” is? A bight is an indent in the coastline shaped by geological processes. The New York Bight is the spatial arrangement of the coast of New Jersey (to the south and west) forming a right angle to the coast of Long Island (to the north and east) in the Atlantic Ocean, with its peak or apex at the mouth of the Hudson River. (visit link)
The most notable untouched geologic feature of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary lies beneath the water. Stop for a moment and imagine what the submarine world looks like, what it sounds like and how it was created. If you look closely, the benthic zone (bottom habitat) and the bathymetry (bottom topography) are revealed in the shallow waters of the estuary. The estuaries greatest natural attribute is its glacier-carved deep harborage that led to it being one of the world’s foremost economic ports.
The New York Bight is a Holocene Epoch phenomenon having formed in the last 10,000 years in the current interglacial period. During the Ice Ages (the Pleistocene Epoch) that preceded it, sea levels dropped by as much 400 feet. (visit link) The mouth of the ancestral Hudson River was over 150 miles further east. The submarine areas of the harbor were dry land all the way to the edge of the continental shelf. When the ice sheet melted, an avalanche of water loaded with glacial deposit made of rocks and soil poured across the exposed shelf of land. Over time, dense river currents carved out a deep gorge in the flood plain that is the Hudson River Canyon – as big as Grand Canyon. (visit link)
The Harbor Estuary is a major thoroughfare of the Port of New York and New Jersey, the third largest port in the country. Huge container ships, barges, oil tankers, cargo vessels, tugboats, and many other merchant ships operate within these waters. There are nautical highways, called channels that crisscross the Harbor Estuary and Upper Bay marking safe passages and danger zones where not to go. (visit link) The navigational channels have been dredged from the natural 17 feet depth to 45-50 feet. In some places channel deepening has blasted through the bedrock or down to the Pleistocene glacial sediments.
There are three entrances to the Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. All three are natural formations taking shape over 8,000 years ago. Vessels enter from the Atlantic Ocean to the Lower Bay by The Narrows under the Verrazano Bridge. Smaller oil barges enter by the Kill Van Kull on the western side of Staten Island to facilities on Newark Bay, while local barges come from the Long Island Sound by the East River. The main passage across the Upper Bay to the Hudson River is called the Anchorage Channel, where small barges towed or pushed by tugboats make deliveries to Upstate New York by way of the Hudson River. To the south are the shipping derricks of the Global Marine Terminal at Bayonne, New Jersey.
The Upper Bay is a very busy commercial and recreational harbor. Sailboats, powerboats, personal watercraft and kayaks share the waters with commercial vessels. Ships and barges at anchor sit in the center of the harbor waiting for the tide to change to enter the port terminals or journey out to sea. With all these boats sharing the waterways, it is important that everyone know the navigation rules.
South of Liberty Walk are two water markers; one is red and the other green. This indicates the channel where there are safe navigable waters. All water buoys are shown on the navigational chart and captains and boaters alike navigate using these charts to find the channels, anchorage areas and depth represented at low tide. This will assure a safe waterway and continue the multi-use of the Upper New York Bay.
All storm drains lead to the estuary. Litter on the streets travels and finds its way into the waterways. With each rainfall, stormwater runs over the surface of the land carrying street litter, lawn fertilizers, spilled oil, and other land runoff, which is washed down storm drains that flow right into estuary waters. Known as nonpoint source pollution, this process degrades water quality and has a negative impact on habitat and aquatic life within the ecosystem. Events far upstream in the watershed can eventually make their way into estuary water. The drainage basin or watershed of the Estuary encompasses about 16,300 square miles, including much of eastern New York, northern New Jersey, and small parts of western Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
The water directly surrounding the seawall is deep enough that healthy fish can grow to considerable sizes and because the harbor is protected from the ocean by Staten Island, these fish have great maneuverability in relatively calm waters. The wayside sign shows some of the fish species that live in the estuary for all or part of their life. The sheltered waters are spawning and nursery grounds for stripped bass, fluke and bluefish.
Different size fish feed on different things – the largest fish feed on smaller fish, and those smaller fish feed on plankton and seaweed. Recreational fishing is allowed in designated areas in Liberty State Park. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection releases fish consumption advisories about possible environmental contaminants and health risks for people eating locally caught seafood (visit link)
Activities:
1. Since the marked channel is often deeper than the surrounding harbor bottom, the navigation channel marks the only area for safe passage of commercial vessels. Look closely at the surface of the water in the channel. What is the difference in the water surface in deep channels from shallower water?
2. Knowing the shape of the New York Bight and looking across the Harbor to its narrowest point at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, does this topography increase or decrease the force of a storm surge from the Atlantic Ocean?
3. (Optional) Name three species of fish in Harbor Estuary waters depicted on the wayside sign?
4. (Optional) The beauty of the scenic view of the Harbor Estuary from Liberty State Park is more than skin deep. How would the vista here change from sea level change?
To log a find on this earthcache, email the cache owner (DO NOT POST IN YOUR LOG), unless instructed otherwise. Use your GPS device to locate the next cache - GC2T1NG. (visit link)
To reserve a field trip for your class, please contact the educators at the Nature Interpretive Center at (201) 915-3409. Geomate Jr. GPS units will be provided to your group for a high-tech exploration of the geology and ecology of Liberty State Park. For more information and additional resources (visit link)
Data Sources
• Harbor Estuary Program: (visit link)
• New York Bight - (visit link)
• U.S. EPA - (visit link)
• U.S. Geological Survey - (visit link)
Name and Type of Land
Liberty State Park
200 Morris Pesin Drive, Jersey City, NJ 07305
Phone: (201) 915-3440
(visit link)
OWNER: NJ Department of Environmental Protection
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