Colville Delta is a

river delta A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition (geology), deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, res ...

in northern Alaska that flows into Harrison Bay. The delta is so flat that it has been said that it is indiscernible where the river ends and the ocean begins. The powerful outflow of the Colville River creates a shallow region that is rich with nutrients, making it ecologically significant for wildlife.

Geography

The Colville River, approximately long, flows from the

De Long Mountains The De Long Mountains are a mountain range in the North Slope Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. The range is located at the west end of the Brooks Range and extends west from Uivaksak Creek and the head of the Kuna River. They were named in 1 ...

until it reaches the Alaska Native community of

Nuiqsut Nuiqsut ( ik, Nuiqsat, ) is a city in North Slope Borough, Alaska, United States. The population was 433 at the 2000 census and 402 as of the 2010 census. Geography Nuiqsut is located at (70.216338, -151.005725). Nuiqsut is in the North Slop ...

, where it forms a broad delta.

Fauna

The waters of the Colville delta, along with the waters of Harrison Bay, make an ideal refuge for

long-tailed duck The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized sea duck that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is th ...

king eider The king eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria spectabilis'') is a large sea duck that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Asia. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ecosystems at high l ...

red-throated loon The red-throated loon (North America) or red-throated diver (Britain and Ireland) (''Gavia stellata'') is a migratory aquatic bird found in the northern hemisphere. The most widely distributed member of the loon or diver family, it breeds prim ...

Arctic tern The Arctic tern (''Sterna paradisaea'') is a tern in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar breeding distribution covering the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe (as far south as Brittany), Asia, and North America (as far south a ...

surf scoter The surf scoter (''Melanitta perspicillata'') is a large sea duck native to North America. Adult males are almost entirely black with characteristic white patches on the forehead and the nape and adult females are slightly smaller and browner. Su ...

s, brant geese, and

glaucous gull The glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus'') is a large gull, the second-largest gull in the world. It breeds in Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and winters south to shores of the Holarctic. The genus name is from Latin ''larus'', which a ...

s. In summer and fall, migrating red-throated and yellow-billed loons and king and spectacled eiders stop in to rest and feed. Nearshore

forage fish Forage fish, also called prey fish or bait fish, are small pelagic fish which are preyed on by larger predators for food. Predators include other larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Typical ocean forage fish feed near the base of the food ...

are important in Arctic food webs, linking energy from smaller prey items to larger predators like birds and marine mammals. Harrison Bay is important habitat for forage fish, such as Arctic cod and capelin.Thornsteinson, L. and M. Love
"Alaska Arctic marine fish ecology catalog: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2016-5038"
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Outer Continental Shelf Study, 2016. Retrieved 15-09-2016. In addition to the many birds, wintering polar bears hunt and feed on ice seals in the shore-fast ice, along open leads, or at openings in pack ice.Kalxdorff S., Collection of local knowledge regarding polar bear habitat use in Alaska" USFWS Marine Mammal Management, 1997. Retrieved 15-09-2016. Pregnant polar bears frequently build winter dens in and around the area The Colville River used to host a small commercial fishery for

Arctic cisco Arctic cisco (''Coregonus autumnalis''), also known as omul russian: Омуль, is an anadromous species of freshwater whitefish that inhabits the Arctic parts of Siberia, Alaska and Canada. It has a close freshwater relative in several lakes of ...

es, and though the fishery is closed, the river delta is still potential habitat for

Salmonidae Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish that constitutes the only currently extant family in the order Salmoniformes . It includes salmon (both Atlantic and Pacific species), trout (both ocean-going and landlocked), chars, freshwater whitefis ...

fishes like

broad whitefish The broad whitefish (''Coregonus nasus'') is a freshwater whitefish species. Dark silvery in colour, and like a herring in its shape, its distinctive features include a convex head, short gill rakers, and a mild overbite. It is found in the Arct ...

Patton J., Galloway B., Fechhelm R., and Cronin M.
"Genetic variation of microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA markers in broad whitefish (Coregonus nasus) in the Colville and Sagavanirktok rivers in northern Alaska"
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 1997. Retrieved 15-09-2016. and nearshore forage fishes like

Arctic cod ''Arctogadus glacialis'', known also with ambiguous common names Arctic cod and polar cod, is an Arctic species of fish in the cod family Gadidae, related to the true cod (genus ''Gadus''). ''Arctogadus glacialis'' is found in icy water. They gr ...

and

capelin The capelin or caplin (''Mallotus villosus'') is a small forage fish of the smelt family found in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Arctic oceans. In summer, it grazes on dense swarms of plankton at the edge of the ice shelf. Larger capelin ...

Geography

Fauna

References

Further reading