Central-and-southern-Yorke-Peninsula-aerial-view-1229

Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, in the state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, the other being the larger Spencer Gulf, from which it is separated by

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Str ...

. On its eastern side the gulf is bordered by the

Adelaide Plains The Adelaide Plains (Kaurna name Tarndanya) is a plain in South Australia lying between the coast (Gulf St Vincent) on the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges on the east. The southernmost tip of the plain is in the southern seaside suburbs of Ade ...

and the

Fleurieu Peninsula The Fleurieu Peninsula () is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide. History Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western side of the peninsula was occupied by the ...

Description

To the south it is defined by a line from

Troubridge Point Troubridge Point is a headland in the Australian state of South Australia located on the south coast of Yorke Peninsula about south west of Edithburgh. It is the western end of the opening to Gulf St Vincent. Description Troubridge Point is ...

on Yorke Peninsula to Cape Jervis on Fleurieu Peninsula. Its entrances from the southwest are from

Investigator Strait Investigator Strait is a body of water in South Australia lying between the Yorke Peninsula, on the Australian mainland, and Kangaroo Island. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his ship, HMS ''Investigator'', on his voyage of 1801–1802 ...

, and to the southeast from

Backstairs Passage The Backstairs Passage is a strait in South Australia lying between Fleurieu Peninsula on the Australian mainland and Dudley Peninsula on the eastern end of Kangaroo Island. The western edge of the passage is a line from Cape Jervis on Fleurieu ...

, which separate

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...

from the mainland.

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

lies midway along the gulf's east shore. Other towns located on the gulf, from west to east include

Edithburgh Edithburgh is a small town on the south-east corner of Yorke Peninsula situated on the coastline of Salt Creek Bay, in the state of South Australia. Edithburgh is about west of Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent, but away by road. At the 2016 ...

, Port Vincent,

Ardrossan Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the 'Three Towns'. Ardrossan is located on the east shore ...

and

Port Wakefield Port Wakefield may refer to. Australia *Port Wakefield, South Australia, a town and locality * Port Wakefield railway line, part of the now-closed Balaklava-Moonta railway line in South Australia * Port Wakefield Circuit, a former motor racing cir ...

and Normanville.

History

The Aboriginal name given to it by the original inhabitants of the area, the

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...

people was Wongajerla, also spelt Wongga Yerlo or Wonggayerlo, meaning "western sea". It was named Gulph of St. Vincent by

Matthew Flinders Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...

on 30 March 1802, in honour of Admiral John Jervis (1st Earl of St Vincent) who won a naval victory off

Cape St. Vincent Cape St. Vincent ( pt, Cabo de São Vicente, ) is a headland in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, in the Algarve, southern Portugal. It is the southwesternmost point of Portugal and of mainland Europe. History Cape St. Vincent was already sacr ...

, Portugal. It was shortly afterwards (after his meeting with Flinders at

Encounter Bay Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baudi ...

on 8 April 1802) mapped by

Nicolas Baudin Nicolas Thomas Baudin (; 17 February 1754 – 16 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific. Biography Early career Born a comm ...

, who named it Golfe de la Mauvaise or Golfe de la Misanthrophie. In the following year

Louis de Freycinet Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet (7 August 1779 – 18 August 1841) was a French Navy officer. He circumnavigated the earth, and in 1811 published the first map to show a full outline of the coastline of Australia. Biography He was born at ...

renamed it Golphe Josephine to honour

Josephine Bonaparte Josephine may refer to: People * Josephine (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Josephine (singer), a Greek pop singer Places *Josephine, Texas, United States *Mount Josephine (disambiguation) * Josephine Coun ...

. Due to Flinders' lengthy imprisonment on

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

during his return to England, the publication of Baudin's map preceded that of Flinders by three years. The

Adelaide Desalination Plant The Adelaide Desalination plant (ADP), formerly known as the Port Stanvac Desalination Plant, is a sea water reverse osmosis desalination plant located in Lonsdale, South Australia which has the capacity to provide the city of Adelaide with up ...

which is located on Gulf St Vincent's eastern shore in Lonsdale, supplies the Adelaide metropolitan area with desalinated water from the gulf. It officially opened in 2013.

Environment

The Gulf teems with crustacea and

polychaeta Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are m ...

, as well as various species of

sea squirt Ascidiacea, commonly known as the ascidians, tunicates (in part), and sea squirts (in part), is a polyphyletic class in the subphylum Tunicata of sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. Ascidians are characterized by a tough outer "tunic" m ...

s and

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

s. The

benthos Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone.zosteraceae Zosteraceae (one of the four seagrasses families, Kubitzki ed. 1998) is a family of marine perennial flowering plants found in temperate and subtropical coastal waters, with the highest diversity located around Korea and Japan. Most seagrasses ...

around the mouth of the

Port River The Port River (officially known as the Port Adelaide River) is part of a tidal estuary located north of the Adelaide city centre in the Australian state of South Australia. It has been used as a shipping channel since the beginning of European ...

. The

cardinalfish Cardinalfishes are a family, Apogonidae, of ray-finned fishes found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; they are chiefly marine, but some species are found in brackish water and a few (notably '' Glossamia'') are found in fresh water. A ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

'' Vincentia'' takes its name from Gulf St Vincent where the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

of its

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

was collected.

Gallery

References

External links