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Tuesday, March 28, 2023

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  • Maritime Musings (11) (X)

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The 1929 Grand Banks earthquake

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on March 24, 2015

At about 5:02 pm on Monday, November 18, 1929, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck beneath the Laurentian Continental Slope about 250 miles south of the island of Newfoundland. The water there is about 7,000 feet deep. The earthquake was felt as far away as New York, Bermuda, and Montreal.

Teak

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on May 20, 2014

Teak is the common name for the Tectona grandis, a member of the verbena family native to the hardwood forests of India, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It is a large deciduous tree, growing to a height of 130 feet, with gray and grayish brown branches.

Malacca

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on April 8, 2014

The Strait of Malacca is named after Malacca, now part of Malaysia. In about the year 1400, Parameswana, the last Raja of Singapura, was expelled from the area around present-day Singapore by local rivals. He relocated to the fishing village of Malacca…

Elephant seal

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on April 1, 2014

Elephant seals are large seals represented by two species, the northern elephant seal and the southern elephant seal. Both were hunted to near extinction through the end of the nineteenth century. The smaller northern elephant seal is found in the eastern portion of the North Pacific Ocean…

McMurdo Sound

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on March 14, 2014

McMurdo Sound (approximately 35 miles long and 30 miles wide) connects the Ross Sea to the north to the Ross Ice Shelf on the coast of Antarctica due south of New Zealand. This body of water, frequently ice-covered, was discovered by Captain…

Abel Tasman

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on May 4, 2012

Abel Tasman (1603-1659) was a Dutch merchant and explorer. He is credited with the European discovery of Australia and New Zealand. He joined the Dutch United East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie - VOC) in 1633 and was promptly…

Alfred Thayer Mahan

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on September 16, 2011

Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) was born at West Point, where his father was an instructor. After graduating with distinction from the US Naval Academy in 1859, he served blockade duty on a number of warships during the Civil War. Mahan was promoted at…

Chesapeake & Delaware Canal

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on June 14, 2011

A canal connecting Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay was envisaged as early as the mid-seventeenth century, when it was realized that the two bodies of water were separated only by a relatively narrow strip of land. A canal company was first founded in 1802…

Nikumaroro

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on December 21, 2010

Nikumaroro (previously known as Gardner Island) is a small coral atoll in the central Pacific Ocean situated just south of the Equator and just west of the 180th meridian. It lies in the Phoenix Island Chain and is part of the Republic of Kiribati.

St. Lawrence Seaway

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on May 14, 2010

The St. Lawrence Seaway is a system of locks, canals, and channels providing a connection for ocean-going ships between the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. Small vessels had historically traveled this route, although portage was often required around rapids…

Turkish Straits

Posted to Maritime Musings (by Dennis Bryant) on April 20, 2010

The Turkish Straits consist of two narrow straits in northwestern Turkey, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and the Sea of Marmara that connects them. The Turkish Straits lie between the Black Sea to the east and the Aegean Sea, which is a region of the much larger Mediterranean Sea.