Puget Sound ( ) is a

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...

of the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

, an inlet of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and two minor connections to the open Pacific Ocean via the

Strait of Juan de Fuca The Strait of Juan de Fuca (officially named Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada) is a body of water about long that is the Salish Sea's outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the centre ...

—

Admiralty Inlet Admiralty Inlet is a strait in the U.S. state of Washington connecting the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Puget Sound. It lies between Whidbey Island and the northeastern part of the Olympic Peninsula. Boundaries It is general ...

being the major connection and

Deception Pass Deception Pass is a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island, in the northwest part of the U.S. state of Washington. It connects Skagit Bay, part of Puget Sound, with the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A pair of bridges known collectivel ...

and

Swinomish Channel The Swinomish Channel is an long salt-water channel in Washington state, United States, which connects Skagit Bay to the south, and Padilla Bay to the north, separating Fidalgo Island from mainland Skagit County. The Swinomish Channel is the s ...

being the minor. Water flow through Deception Pass is approximately equal to 2% of the total tidal exchange between Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Puget Sound extends approximately from Deception Pass in the north to Olympia in the south. Its average depth is and its maximum depth, off Jefferson Point between Indianola and Kingston, is . The depth of the main basin, between the southern tip of

Whidbey Island Whidbey Island (historical spellings Whidby, Whitbey, or Whitby) is the largest of the islands composing Island County, Washington, in the United States, and the largest island in Washington State. (The other large island is Camano Island, ...

and Tacoma, is approximately . In 2009, the term Salish Sea was established by the United States Board on Geographic Names as the collective waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. Sometimes the terms "Puget Sound" and "Puget Sound and adjacent waters" are used for not only Puget Sound proper but also for waters to the north, such as

Bellingham Bay Bellingham Bay is a bay of the Salish Sea located in Washington State in the United States. It is separated from the Strait of Georgia on the west by the Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, and Lummi Island. It is bordered on the east by Bellingha ...

and the

San Juan Islands The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of ...

region. The term "Puget Sound" is used not just for the body of water but also the

Puget Sound region The Puget Sound region is a coastal area of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. state of Washington, including Puget Sound, the Puget Sound lowlands, and the surrounding region roughly west of the Cascade Range and east of the Olympic Mountains. ...

centered on the sound. Major cities on the sound include

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Tacoma, Olympia, and Everett. Puget Sound is also the second-largest

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

in the United States, after

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

Names

In 1792 George Vancouver gave the name "Puget's Sound" to the waters south of the

Tacoma Narrows The Tacoma Narrows (or the Narrows), a strait, is part of Puget Sound in the U.S. state of Washington. A navigable maritime waterway between glacial landforms, the Narrows separates the Kitsap Peninsula from the city of Tacoma. The Narrows i ...

, in honor of

Peter Puget Peter Puget (1765 – 31 October 1822) was an officer in the Royal Navy, best known for his exploration of Puget Sound. Midshipman Puget Puget's ancestors had fled France for Britain during Louis XIV's persecution of the Huguenots. His father, ...

, a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

lieutenant accompanying him on the

Vancouver Expedition The Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) was a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration and diplomacy, commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. The British expedition circumnavigated the globe and made contact with five continen ...

. This name later came to be used for the waters north of Tacoma Narrows as well. A different term for Puget Sound, used by a number of Native Americans and environmental groups, is ''Whulge'' (or ''Whulj''), an anglicization of the

Lushootseed Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salis ...

name ', which means "sea, salt water, ocean, or sound".

Definitions

The

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

defines Puget Sound as all the waters south of three entrances from the

. The main entrance at

is defined as a line between Point Wilson on the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and th ...

, and Point Partridge on

. The second entrance is at

along a line from West Point on Whidbey Island, to Deception Island, then to Rosario Head on

Fidalgo Island Fidalgo Island is an island in Skagit County, Washington, located about north of Seattle. To the east, it is separated from the mainland by the Swinomish Channel, and from Whidbey Island to the south by Deception Pass. The island is named af ...

. The third entrance is at the south end of the

, which connects

Skagit Bay Skagit Bay is a bay and strait located in the U.S. state of Washington. It is part of the Whidbey Island Basin of Puget Sound. The Skagit River empties into Skagit Bay. To the south, Skagit Bay connects with the rest of Puget Sound via Saratoga ...

and

Padilla Bay Padilla Bay is a bay located in the U.S. state of Washington, between the San Juan Islands and the mainland. Fidalgo Island and Guemes Island lie to the west of Padilla Bay. Guemes Channel, between the islands, connects Padilla Bay to Rosario Str ...

. Under this definition, Puget Sound includes the waters of

Hood Canal Hood Canal is a fjord forming the western lobe, and one of the four main basins,Possession Sound Possession Sound is part of Puget Sound, located in the U.S. state of Washington between Whidbey Island and the shoreline of Snohomish County approximately between the cities of Everett and Mukilteo. Possession Sound connects the main Puget ...

Saratoga Passage Saratoga Passage lies in Puget Sound between Whidbey Island and Camano Island. Saratoga Passage extends about 18 miles in a northwesterly direction from its entrance between Sandy Point on the Whidbey Island side and Camano Head on the other. ...

, and others. It does not include

, Padilla Bay, the waters of the

or anything farther north. Another definition, given by NOAA, subdivides Puget Sound into five basins or regions. Four of these (including South Puget Sound) correspond to areas within the USGS definition, but the fifth, called "Northern Puget Sound" includes a large additional region. It is defined as bounded to the north by the international boundary with Canada, and to the west by a line running north from the mouth of the Sekiu River on the Olympic Peninsula. Under this definition, significant parts of the

and the Strait of Georgia are included in Puget Sound, with the international boundary marking an abrupt and hydrologically arbitrary limit. According to Arthur Kruckeberg, the term "Puget Sound" is sometimes used for waters north of Admiralty Inlet and Deception Pass, especially for areas along the north coast of Washington and the San Juan Islands, essentially equivalent to NOAA's "Northern Puget Sound" subdivision described above. Kruckeberg uses the term "Puget Sound and adjacent waters". Kruckeberg's 1991 text, however, does not reflect the decision of the United States Board on Geographic Names in the year 2009 to use the term Salish Sea to refer to the greater maritime environment.

Geology

Continental

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at La ...

s have repeatedly advanced and retreated from the Puget Sound region. The most recent

glacial period A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betwe ...

, called the Fraser Glaciation, had three phases, or stades. During the third, or Vashon Glaciation, a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, called the Puget Lobe, spread south about 15,000 years ago, covering the Puget Sound region with an ice sheet about thick near Seattle, and nearly at the present Canada-U.S. border. Since each new advance and retreat of ice erodes away much of the evidence of previous ice ages, the most recent Vashon phase has left the clearest imprint on the land. At its maximum extent the Vashon ice sheet extended south of Olympia to near Tenino, and covered the lowlands between the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges. About 14,000 years ago the ice began to retreat. By 11,000 years ago it survived only north of the Canada–US border.Kruckeberg (1991), pp. 18–23. The melting retreat of the Vashon Glaciation eroded the land, creating a drumlin field of hundreds of aligned drumlin hills. Lake Washington and

Lake Sammamish Lake Sammamish is a freshwater lake east of Seattle in King County, Washington, United States. The lake is long and wide, with a maximum depth of and a surface area of . It lies east of Lake Washington and west of the Sammamish Plateau, a ...

(which are ribbon lakes),

Hood Canal Hood Canal is a fjord forming the western lobe, and one of the four main basins,glacial till were deposited throughout the Puget Sound region. The soils of the region, less than ten thousand years old, are still characterized as immature. As the Vashon glacier receded a series of

proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around th ...

s formed, filling the main trough of Puget Sound and inundating the southern lowlands. Glacial Lake Russell was the first such large recessional lake. From the vicinity of Seattle in the north the lake extended south to the

Black Hills The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black ...

, where it drained south into the Chehalis River. Sediments from Lake Russell form the blue-gray clay identified as the Lawton Clay. The second major recessional lake was Glacial Lake Bretz. It also drained to the Chehalis River until the Chimacum Valley, in the northeast

, melted, allowing the lake's water to rapidly drain north into the marine waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which was rising as the ice sheet retreated. As icebergs calved off the toe of the glacier, their embedded gravels and boulders were deposited in the chaotic mix of unsorted

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

geologists call ''glaciomarine drift.'' Many beaches about the Sound display

glacial erratic A glacial erratic is glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundre ...

s, rendered more prominent than those in coastal woodland solely by their exposed position; submerged glacial erratics sometimes cause hazards to navigation. The sheer weight of glacial-age ice depressed the landforms, which experienced

post-glacial rebound Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound ...

after the ice sheets had retreated. Because the rate of rebound was not synchronous with the post-ice age rise in sea levels, the bed of what is Puget Sound, filled alternately with fresh and with sea water. The upper level of the lake-sediment Lawton Clay now lies about above sea level. Seattle seen from Ferry on Puget Sound

The Puget Sound system consists of four deep basins connected by shallower sills. The four basins are

Hood Canal Hood Canal is a fjord forming the western lobe, and one of the four main basins,Kitsap Peninsula The Kitsap Peninsula () lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kit ...

, Whidbey Basin, east of Whidbey Island, South Sound, south of the

, and the Main Basin, which is further subdivided into

and the Central Basin. Puget Sound's sills, a kind of submarine

terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...

, separate the basins from one another, and Puget Sound from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Three sills are particularly significant—the one at Admiralty Inlet which checks the flow of water between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, the one at the entrance to Hood Canal (about below the surface), and the one at the Tacoma Narrows (about ). Other sills that present less of a barrier include the ones at

Blake Island Blake Island is a Puget Sound island in Kitsap County, Washington, United States, that is preserved as Blake Island Marine State Park. The island lies north of Vashon Island, south of Bainbridge Island, and east of Manchester. On the northeast e ...

Agate Pass Agate Pass or Agate Passage is a high-current tidal strait in Puget Sound connecting Port Madison and mainland Kitsap County in the US state of Washington. It lies between Bainbridge Island and the mainland of the Kitsap Peninsula near Suquamis ...

Rich Passage Rich Passage is a tidal strait in Puget Sound, allowing access to Bremerton, Washington, Sinclair Inlet, and Dyes Inlet. It separates Bainbridge Island from the Manchester area of Kitsap Peninsula. Due to the activities at Puget Sound Naval ...

, and Hammersley Inlet. The depth of the basins is a result of the Sound being part of the

Cascadia subduction zone The Cascadia subduction zone is a convergent plate boundary that stretches from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California in the United States. It is a very long, sloping subduction zone where the Explorer, Juan de Fuca, a ...

, where the

terrane In geology, a terrane (; in full, a tectonostratigraphic terrane) is a crust (geology), crust fragment formed on a tectonic plate (or broken off from it) and Accretion (geology), accreted or "Suture (geology), sutured" to crust lying on another pla ...

s accreted at the edge of the Juan de Fuca Plate are being subducted under the

North American Plate The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacif ...

. There has not been a major subduction zone earthquake here since the

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

nine Cascadia earthquake; according to Japanese records, it occurred January 26, 1700. Lesser Puget Sound

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

s with shallow

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

s, caused by the fracturing of stressed oceanic rocks as they are subducted, still cause great damage. The

Seattle Fault The Seattle Fault is a zone of multiple shallow east–west thrust faults that cross the Puget Sound Lowland and through Seattle (in the U.S. state of Washington) in the vicinity of Interstate Highway 90. The Seattle Fault was first recognized as ...

cuts across Puget Sound, crossing the southern tip of Bainbridge Island and under Elliott Bay. To the south, the existence of a second fault, the Tacoma Fault, has buckled the intervening strata in the Seattle Uplift. Typical Puget Sound profiles of dense glacial till overlying permeable glacial outwash of gravels above an impermeable bed of silty clay may become unstable after periods of unusually wet weather and slump in landslides.

Hydrology

The

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

(USGS) defines Puget Sound as a bay with numerous channels and branches; more specifically, it is a

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...

system of flooded glacial valleys. Puget Sound is part of a larger physiographic structure termed the Puget Trough, which is a physiographic section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System. Puget Sound is a large salt water

, or system of many estuaries, fed by highly seasonal freshwater from the Olympic and Cascade Mountain watersheds. The mean annual river discharge into Puget Sound is , with a monthly average maximum of about and minimum of about . Puget Sound's shoreline is long, encompassing a water area of and a total volume of at mean high water. The average volume of water flowing in and out of Puget Sound during each tide is . The maximum tidal currents, in the range of 9 to 10 knots, occurs at Deception Pass. The size of Puget Sound's watershed is . ArcExplorer GIS data viewer. "Northern Puget Sound" is frequently considered part of the Puget Sound watershed, which enlarges its size to . The

uses the name "Puget Sound" for its

hydrologic unit A hydrological code or hydrologic unit code is a sequence of numbers or letters (a ''geocode'') that identify a hydrological unit or feature, such as a river, river reach, lake, or area like a drainage basin (also called watershed in North America ...

subregion 1711, which includes areas draining to Puget Sound proper as well as the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia, and the Fraser River. Significant rivers that drain to "Northern Puget Sound" include the Nooksack,

Dungeness Dungeness () is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the hamlet ...

, and Elwha Rivers. The Nooksack empties into Bellingham Bay, the Dungeness and Elwha into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Chilliwack River flows north to the Fraser River in Canada.

Tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ...

s in Puget Sound are of the mixed type with two high and two low tides each tidal day. These are called Higher High Water (HHW), Lower Low Water (LLW), Lower High Water (LHW), and Higher Low Water (HLW). The configuration of basins, sills, and interconnections cause the tidal range to increase within Puget Sound. The difference in height between the Higher High Water and the Lower Low Water averages about at Port Townsend on Admiralty Inlet, but increases to about at Olympia, the southern end of Puget Sound. Puget Sound is generally accepted as the start of the

Inside Passage The Inside Passage (french: Passage Intérieur) is a coastal route for ships and boats along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific Northwest coast of the North American Fjordland. The route extends from southeaste ...

Flora and fauna

Important marine flora of Puget Sound include eelgrass ('' Zostera marina'') and various

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwa ...

, important kelps include canopy forming bull kelp ('' Nereocystis luetkeana''). and edible kelps like kombu ('' Saccharina latissima) Oncorhynchus nerka

Lake Washington Ship Canal Fish Ladder pamphlet - ocean phase Steelhead

Among the marine mammals species found in Puget Sound are harbor seals (''Phoca vitulina''). Orca (''Orcinus orca''), or "killer whales" are famous throughout the Sound, and are a large tourist attraction. Although orca are sometimes seen in Puget Sound proper they are far more prevalent around the

north of Puget Sound. Many fish species occur in Puget Sound. The various Salmonidae, salmonid species, including salmon, trout, and Salvelinus, char are particularly well-known and studied. Salmonid species of Puget Sound include chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha''), chum salmon (''O. keta''), coho salmon (''O. kisutch''), pink salmon (''O. gorbuscha''), sockeye salmon (''O. nerka''), sea-run coastal cutthroat trout (''O. clarki clarki''), Rainbow trout, steelhead (''O. mykiss irideus''), sea-run bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus''), and Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma malma''). Common forage fishes found in Puget Sound include Pacific herring (''Clupea pallasii''), Hypomesus pretiosus, surf smelt (''Hypomesus pretiosus''), and Pacific sand lance (''Ammodytes hexapterus''). Important benthopelagic fish of Puget Sound include North Pacific hake (''Merluccius productus''), Pacific cod (''Gadus macrocelhalus''), walleye pollock (''Theragra chalcogramma''), and the spiny dogfish (''Squalus acanthias''). There are about 28 species of Sebastidae (rockfish), of many types, found in Puget Sound. Among those of special interest are copper rockfish (''Sebastes caurinus''), quillback rockfish (''S. maliger''), black rockfish (''S. melanops''), yelloweye rockfish (''S. ruberrimus''), bocaccio rockfish (''S. paucispinis''), canary rockfish (''S. pinniger''), and Puget Sound rockfish (''S. emphaeus''). Many other fish species occur in Puget Sound, such as sturgeons, lampreys, various sharks, Batoidea, rays, and Skate (fish), skates. Puget Sound is home to numerous species of marine invertebrates, including sponges, sea anemones, chitons, clams, sea snails, limpets, crabs, barnacles, starfish, sea urchins, and sand dollars. Dungeness crabs (''Metacarcinus magister'') occur throughout Washington waters, including Puget Sound. Many bivalves occur in Puget Sound, such as Pacific oysters (''Crassostrea gigas'') and geoduck clams (''Panopea generosa''). The Olympia oyster (''Ostreola conchaphila''), once common in Puget Sound, was depleted by human activities during the 20th century. There are ongoing efforts to restore Olympia oysters in Puget Sound. There are many seabird species of Puget Sound. Among these are grebes such as the western grebe (''Aechmophorus occidentalis''); loons such as the common loon (''Gavia immer''); auks such as the pigeon guillemot (''Cepphus columba''), rhinoceros auklet (''Cerorhinca monocerata''), common murre (''Uria aalge''), and marbled murrelet (''Brachyramphus marmoratus''); the brant goose (''Branta bernicla''); Merginae, seaducks such as the long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), harlequin duck (''Histrionicus histrionicus''), and surf scoter (''Melanitta perspicillata''); and cormorants such as the double-crested cormorant (''Phalacrocorax auritus''). Puget Sound is home to a non-migratory and marine-oriented subspecies of great blue herons (''Ardea herodias fannini''). Bald eagles (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') occur in relative high densities in the Puget Sound region. It is estimated that more than 100 million geoducks (pronounced "gooey ducks") are packed into Puget Sound's sediments. Also known as "king clam", geoducks are considered to be a delicacy in Asian countries.

History

The earliest known presence of indigenous inhabitants in the Puget Sound region date to around 13,800 BC. Some notable Coast Salish Indian tribes of the Puget Sound region include the Duwamish people, Duwamish, Nisqually people, Nisqually, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Snoqualmie, and the Steilacoom people. Dispatched in an attempt to locate the fabled Northwest Passage, British Royal Navy captain George Vancouver anchored on May 19, 1792, on the shores of

, explored Puget Sound, and claimed it for Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain on June 4 the same year, naming it for one of his officers, Peter Puget, Lieutenant Peter Puget. He further named the entire region; ''New Georgia'', after King George III. After 1818 Britain and the United States, which both claimed the Oregon Country, agreed to "joint occupancy", deferring resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute until the 1846 Oregon Treaty. Puget Sound was part of the disputed region until 1846, after which it became US territory. American maritime fur traders visited Puget Sound in the early 19th century. The first European settlement in the Puget Sound area was Fort Nisqually, a fur trade post of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) built in 1833. Fort Nisqually was part of the HBC's Columbia District, headquartered at Fort Vancouver. In 1838, the HBC's subsidy operation, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company was established in part to procure resources and trade, as well as to further establish British claim to the region. British ships such as the ''Beaver (steamship), Beaver'', exported foodstuffs and provisions from Fort Nisqually, and would eventually export Puget Sound lumber, an industry that would soon outpace the dominant fur trading market and drive the early Puget Sound economy. The first temporary American settlement was at Fort Nisqually, where missionaries J.P Richmond and W.H Wilson settled for two years in 1840. The first organized American Expedition took place under the helm of Commander Charles Wilkes, whose exploring party sailed up Puget Sound in 1841. However, the first permanent American settlement on Puget Sound was Tumwater, Washington, Tumwater, founded in 1845 by Americans who had come via the Oregon Trail. The decision to settle north of the Columbia River was made in part because one of the settlers, George Washington Bush, was considered Black people, black and the Provisional Government of Oregon banned the residency of mulattoes but did not actively enforce the restriction north of the river. In 1853 Washington Territory was formed from part of Oregon Territory. In 1888 the Northern Pacific Railway, Northern Pacific railroad line reached Puget Sound, linking the region to eastern states. Washington State was admitted to the union in 1889 as part of the Enabling Act of 1889, enabling act, and the regions borders have since remained unchanged.

Transportation

A unique state-run ferry system, the Washington State Ferries, connects the larger islands to the Washington mainland, as well as both sides of the sound, with vessels capable of carrying passengers and automobile traffic. The system carries 24 million passengers annually and is the largest ferry operator in the United States.

Environmental issues

Over the past 30 years, as the human population of the region has increased, there has been a correlating decrease in various plant and animal species which inhabit Puget Sound. The decline has been seen in numerous populations including forage fish, salmonids, bottom fish, marine birds, harbor porpoise, and orcas. The decline is attributed to a variety of issues, including human population growth, pollution, and climate change. Because of this population decline, there have been changes to the fishery practices, and an increase in petitioning to add species to the Endangered Species Act. There has also been an increase in Endangered Species Recovery Plan, recovery and management plans for many different area species. Fishermen purse seining in Puget Sound, ca 1917 (COBB 71)

Fishermen purse seining in Puget Sound, ca 1917 (COBB 71)

The causes of these environmental issues are toxic contamination, eutrophication (low oxygen due to excess nutrients), and near shore habitat changes. On May 22, 1978, a valve was mistakenly opened aboard the submarine USS Puffer (SSN-652), USS ''Puffer'' releasing up to 500 US gallons (1,900 L; 420 imp gal) of Radioactive contamination, radioactive water into Puget Sound, during an overhaul in drydock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Bremerton Naval Shipyard.

Prominent islands

* Anderson Island (Washington), Anderson Island * Bainbridge Island *

* Camano Island *

* Fox Island, Washington, Fox Island * Harstine Island, Washington, Harstine Island * Herron Island * Indian Island, Washington, Indian Island * Marrowstone Island * Maury Island * McNeil Island * Squaxin Island * Vashon Island *

References

External links

University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Oliver S. Van Olinda Photographs
A collection of 420 photographs depicting life on Vashon Island, Whidbey Island, Seattle, and other communities of Washington State's Puget Sound from the 1880s through the 1930s.

Life on Whidbey Island, the largest in Puget Sound
* [ftp://dnr.metrokc.gov/dnr/library/2001/kcr762/PDFELEMENTS/SONR03.pdf Features of Puget Sound Region: Oceanography And Physical Processes], Chapter 3 of th
State of the Nearshore Report
King County Department of Natural Resources, Seattle, Washington, 2001. {{Authority control Puget Sound, Estuaries of Washington (state) Fjords of Washington (state) Physiographic sections Bodies of water of Island County, Washington Bodies of water of Snohomish County, Washington Bodies of water of King County, Washington Bodies of water of Pierce County, Washington Bodies of water of Mason County, Washington Bodies of water of Thurston County, Washington Bodies of water of Jefferson County, Washington Bodies of water of Kitsap County, Washington Bodies of water of Skagit County, Washington Sounds of the United States