Bay of Fundy

New Brunswick, Canada

The Bay of Fundy, a 170 mile long body of water between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is famous for its dramatic tide changes.¹ Because of the Bay’s elongated shape, water levels can vary by as much as 50 feet between high and low tides, especially in the narrower parts of the northern end of the Bay.^{2 3}

Scientists estimate that approximately 100 billion tons of seawater flow in and out of the Bay of Fundy each day, an amount of water greater than that carried by all of Earth’s rivers combined.^{4 5} The tides carry an abundance of food for at least five different species of whale that frequent the Bay—other species have also been spotted there—and hundreds of thousands of sandpipers and other seabirds stop during their migrations to feed in the area’s mudflats.⁶

Next: Beach of Aphrodite

References

1. Bay of Fundy. Accessed 3 Jan. 2014.
2. Kaushik. Tides at the Bay of Fundy. Amusing Planet. 18 Mar. 2012. Accessed 3 Jan. 2014.
3. Bay of Fundy. Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed 3 Jan. 2014.
4. Bay of Fundy: the Highest Tides in the World. Nova Scotia. Accessed 3 Jan. 2014.
5. The Bay of Fundy Whales. New Brunswick. Accessed 3 Jan. 2014.
6. Bay of Fundy. Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Accessed 3 Jan. 2014.

Published 2018-06-18