Gulf of Maine
The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the northeastern coast of North America, roughly between Cape Cod in Massachusetts on the south and Cape Sable on the southern tip of Nova Scotia on the north. It includes the entire coastlines of the U.S. states of New Hampshire and Maine, as well as Massachusetts north of Cape Cod. It also includes parts of the southern coastlines of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Geographically, Massachusetts Bay and the Bay of Fundy are within the Gulf of Maine.
The gulf coast is predominantly rocky and scenic. Protected from the open Gulf Stream by Cape Cod on its southern end, its waters are colder and its coastline lacks the sandy beaches found along the coast of much of North America farther south. The underwater features of the gulf sculptured during the lower sea levels of the ice ages make the gulf a semi-enclosed sea bounded to the south and east by underwater banks. Undersea alleys reach depths of 1,500 feet (500 meters) while undersea mountains rise up 800 feet (266 meters) from the sea floor, almost reaching the surface.
The watershed of the gulf encompasses an area of 69,115 sq (179,008 km²), including all of Maine, 70 percent of New Hampshire, 56 percent of New Brunswick, 41 percent of Massachusetts, and 36 percent of Nova Scotia. The watershed also includes a small portion (less than 1 percent) of the Canadian province of Quebec. Significant rivers that drain into the gulf include the St. John, St. Croix River, Penobscot, Kennebec, Piscataqua and Merrimack rivers.
The cold waters of the gulf make it one of the most productive marine environments on earth, and it furnishes habitat for many diverese species including most notably the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) and the American lobster (Homarus americanus), which grows to famously large sizes in the gulf.
The gulf's relative proximity to Europe made it an early destination for European colonization. French settlers founded a settlment on St. Croix Island in 1604. English settlers founded the Popham Colony on an island in the Kennebec River in 1607, the same years as the Jamestown settlement.
In the 1960s and 1970s Canada and the United States had a dispute over fishing and other resource rights in the Gulf of Maine, specifically the Georges Bank region. This dispute was taken to the International Court of Justice, which delineated a boundary through the gulf in 1984.
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