Baffin Bay is a bay in South Texas, an inlet of the larger

Laguna Madre The Laguna Madre is a long, shallow, hypersaline lagoon along the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Nueces, Kenedy, Kleberg, Willacy and Cameron Counties in Texas, United States. It is one of seven major estuaries along the Gulf Coast ...

. Located near the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

, Baffin Bay forms part of the boundary between Kenedy County and Kleberg County.

Etymology

The history of the bay name is unclear. The most popular story is that Captain Mifflin Kenedy (1818–1895), after visiting the Arctic Baffin Bay as a young man, gave the same name to the bay in Texas because of the remarkable contrast between the bays. The Arctic Baffin Bay is located between the Baffin Island of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

, and it is about 310 times larger by area than the Baffin Bay in Texas.Baffin Bay

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

(in Russian)

Hydrology

The Baffin Bay has three branches, which are named as follows (counterclockwise on the map above):

Alazan Bay Alazan Bay is located in southeast Texas, United States in Kleberg County near the city of Kingsville. The mouth of Alazan Bay feeds into Baffin Bay (Texas), Baffin Bay and among the three bays that extend off Baffin Bay, Alazan Bay is the largest ...

on the north (green), Cayo del Grullo (purple) and Laguna Salada (blue). Several

ephemeral Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...

streams, including San Fernando, Santa Gertrudis and Los Olmos, flow into the bay, but only when it rains. Because of the scarce freshwater inflow and extensive evaporation, which is promoted by shallow water and warm climate, the bay has a relatively high water salinity reaching 75‰ (parts per thousand) in its northern part. Between 1946 and 1948 and in 1968, the salinity level in the bay exceeded 100‰ killing much fish in the area. About 21 km² of the bottom of the bay is covered in

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 or ...

; most other parts are dominated by shoal grass ('' Halodule beaudettei'') with occasional rocky outcrops. Scattered parts of the bay, mostly near the mouth, contain the relict serpulid worm reefs, which are composed of the remains of serpulid tube worms. Although some tube worm species still inhabit the bay area and the reefs, they bring no significant contribution to the reef structure. Most reefs are circular or ellipsoid structures between 8 and 40 meters (26 to 131 ft) in diameter and 0.5 to 2 meters (1.5–6.6 ft) in height above the sediment. Their total area is about 16 km² (6 mi²), but it is gradually reducing due to erosion.

Climate

The climate has been described as semiarid, subhumid or subtropical, with a very varying precipitation. Tropical storms and hurricanes are common, and they strongly alter the climate and hydrology of the region.

Flora and fauna

The lands around the bay are flat and dominated by grasslands and oak savanna; they are used for agriculture and cattle farming.Bartlett, p. 15 Common tree and plant species include southern live oak (''

Quercus virginiana ''Quercus virginiana'', also known as the southern live oak, is an evergreen oak tree endemic to the Southeastern United States. Though many other species are loosely called live oak, the southern live oak is particularly iconic of the Old Sou ...

''), prickly pear ('' Opuntia'' spp.), lime prickly-ash ('' Zanthoxylum fagara''), greenbriar (''

Smilax ''Smilax'' is a genus of about 300–350 species, found in the tropics and subtropics worldwide. In China for example about 80 are found (39 of which are endemic), while there are 20 in North America north of Mexico. They are climbing flowering ...

'' spp.), sunflowers (''

Helianthus ''Helianthus'' () is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of ''Helianthus'' are native to ...

'' spp.), tanglehead (''

Heteropogon contortus ''Heteropogon contortus'' is a tropical, perennial tussock grass with a native distribution encompassing Southern Africa, southern Asia, Northern Australia, Oceania, and southwestern North America. The species has also become a naturalised weed i ...

''), crinkleawn ('' Trachypogon spicatus''), gulfdune paspalum ('' Paspalum monostachyum''), fringed signalgrass ('' Urochloa ciliatissima''), shrubby oxalis ('' Oxalis frutescens angustifolia''), dayflower ('' Commelina'' spp.), Texas lantana (''

Lantana urticoides ''Lantana urticoides'', also known as Texas Lantana, is a three- to five-foot perennial shrub that grows in Mexico and the U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi especially along the Gulf coast. The plant can blossom from spring until th ...

''), Texas bullnettle ('' Cnidoscolus texanus''), silverleaf nightshade (''

Solanum elaeagnifolium ''Solanum elaeagnifolium'', the silverleaf nightshade or silver-leaved nightshade, is a common native plant to parts of the southwestern USA, and sometimes weed of western North America and also found in South America. Other common names includ ...

''), crotons ('' Croton'' spp.) and Lindheimer tephrosia ('' Tephrosia lindheimeri''). The waters of the bay contain several species of annelids and 29 species of diatoms. The dominant mollusks are dwarf surf clams and '' Capitella capitata''. The serpulid worm reefs are inhabited by crustaceans,

polychaete 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 made ...

s and mollusks. Invertebrates are represented by the endemic

fiddler crab The fiddler crab or calling crab may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae, well known for their sexually dimorphic claws; the males' major claw is much larger than the minor claw, while ...

species ''Uca subcylindrica'', which reside on dry soil, more than 20 meters from bay waters. The bay is a popular destination for recreational angling and is famous for its trophy

spotted seatrout ''Cynoscion nebulosus'', the spotted seatrout, also known as speckled trout, is a common estuarine fish found in the southern United States along coasts of Gulf of Mexico and the coastal Atlantic Ocean from Maryland to Florida. While most of thes ...

. Other species include

redfish Redfish is a common name for several species of fish. It is most commonly applied to certain deep-sea rockfish in the genus ''Sebastes'', red drum from the genus '' Sciaenops'' or the reef dwelling snappers in the genus '' Lutjanus''. It is also a ...

, threadfin shad (in low salinity periods),

pompano Pompanos ( ) are marine fishes in the genus ''Trachinotus'' in the family Carangidae (better known as "jacks"). Pompano may also refer to various other, similarly shaped members of the Carangidae, or the order Perciformes. Their appearance is o ...

black drum The black drum (''Pogonias cromis''), also known as the drum or drummer, is a saltwater fish similar to its cousin, the red drum. It is in the genus '' Pogonias''. Though most specimens are generally found in the 5-30 lb (2–14 kg) ran ...

and burrowing goby,McKee, p. 155 etc.

Notes

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * {{Authority control Bays of Texas Bodies of water of Kenedy County, Texas Bodies of water of Kleberg County, Texas