Bramble Bay is an embayment of

Moreton Bay Moreton Bay is a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia from central Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are ...

South East Queensland South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million people out of the state's population of 5.1 million. Th ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. The Brisway map reference is 12 H5, or see page 91 G19 in Refidex. The Houghton Highway,

Hornibrook Bridge Hornibrook Bridge is a heritage-listed mostly-demolished road bridge on the Hornibrook Highway over Hays Inlet at Bramble Bay from Brighton, City of Brisbane to Clontarf, Moreton Bay Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Manu ...

and

Ted Smout Memorial Bridge The Ted Smout Memorial Bridge is a road and pedestrian bridge in Brisbane, Australia, the third bridge crossing Hays Inlet in Bramble Bay (the first being the now demolished Hornibrook Bridge). It is located 30 metres to the east of the Hough ...

span Bramble Bay, connecting Redcliffe with

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

. The

Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race The Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race is held annually, starting on Good Friday. The premier blue water classic begins from Shorncliffe in Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia, and finishes in Gladstone Harbour. Yachts compete for the Courier ...

begins in Bramble Bay. Activities for the annual race are centred on the

Shorncliffe pier Shorncliffe Pier is a historic pier in Shorncliffe, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, situated near Saint Patrick's College and lower Moora Park. The pier with its white faded timber railings, colonial street lamps spaced out along the stretc ...

and nearby foreshore. Bramble Bay is the most environmentally degraded part of Moreton Bay. Because the bay is so close to the urban populations of Brisbane and Redcliffe the collection of shelled marine animals such as

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...

scallop Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...

s and

limpet Limpets are a group of aquatic snails that exhibit a conical gastropod shell, shell shape (patelliform) and a strong, muscular foot. Limpets are members of the class Gastropoda, but are polyphyletic, meaning the various groups called "limpets" ...

s is banned. Fishing within bay's closed waters, risks on the spot fines at all times under Queensland's closed water fishing regulations.

Geography

North of Bramble Bay the shoreline forms the southern peninsula shape of the Redcliffe City suburbs of Clontarf and Woody Point. The southern shoreline follows Brisbane City suburbs of

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, Sandgate and the northern Shorncliffe shoreline. The former suburb of Cribb Island was also found on the southern shoreline of the bay until it was disbanded for the construction of the

Brisbane Airport Brisbane Airport is the primary international airport serving Brisbane and South East Queensland. The airport services 31 airlines flying to 50 domestic and 29 international destinations, in total amounting to more than 22.7 million passe ...

. Bramble Bay flows into

Hays Inlet Hays Inlet is a saltwater inlet off Bramble Bay in Moreton Bay Region, Queensland, Australia. The Brisway map reference is 420 L19. A mangrove forest is found in the inlet. Geography The slender inlet forms the shape of the south-western Redcl ...

to the north-west, and Pine River flows into Bramble Bay to the south-west. Some definitions place the mouth of the

Brisbane River The Brisbane River is the longest river in South East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the ...

and the

Boondall Wetlands The Boondall Wetlands lie on the edge of Moreton Bay in the Brisbane suburb of Boondall between Nudgee Beach and Shorncliffe, in south-east Queensland, Australia. The wetlands are preserved within the Boondall Wetlands Reserve which was pres ...

in Bramble Bay. This would also place the mouths of a number of smaller creeks south of Shorncliffe, including Cabbage Tree Creek (formerly Tighgum Creek), Nundah Creek and

Kedron Brook The Kedron Brook is a creek that flows through the northern suburbs of Brisbane in the south-east region of Queensland, Australia. Course and features Formed by spring D'Aguilar Range within the southern portion of the D'Aguilar National Park ...

, within the Bramble Bay catchment.

Water quality

Both rivers flowing into Bramble Bay carry high loads of

nutrient A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excre ...

s and suspended

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand ...

s. Water in the bay is very

turbid Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality. Fluids c ...

. At times two sewerage plumes from the rivers are visible in Bramble Bay. The

residence time The residence time of a fluid parcel is the total time that the parcel has spent inside a control volume (e.g.: a chemical reactor, a lake, a human body). The residence time of a set of parcels is quantified in terms of the frequency distribu ...

for Bramble Bay, that is, the period of time that a parcel of water remains at a particular location, is 59 to 62 days, the longest for any part of Moreton Bay. In 2009, the annual Healthy Waterways Partnership Report Card rated Bramble Bay an F from a previous C. The rating deteriorated because of an increase in

phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. ...

and

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

concentrations, as well as decreases in water clarity and

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

. During the past the bay contained large areas of

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families ( Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the ...

which attracted feeding dugongs, however there are no seagrass beds in the bay today. This is due to a lack of sunlight reaching the seabed.

References

External links

Google Maps Satellite Photo

{{coord, 27, 18, S, 153, 06, E, region:AU_type:waterbody, display=title Bays of Queensland South East Queensland Moreton Bay

Geography

Water quality

See also

References

External links