Pine Island Sound (Florida, USA) (39569421580)

Pine Island Sound is located in

Lee County, Florida Lee County is located in Southwest Florida on the Gulf Coast. As of the 2020 census, the population was 760,822. The county seat is Fort Myers (with a population of 86,395 as of the 2020 census), and the largest city is Cape Coral with an ...

, lying between Pine Island and the

barrier islands Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a ...

of Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, North Captiva Island and Cayo Costa, which separate the Sound from 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 S ...

. The Sound connects to

Gasparilla Sound Gasparilla Island is a barrier island in southwest Florida, United States, straddling the border of Charlotte and Lee Lee may refer to: Name Given name * Lee (given name), a given name in English Surname * Chinese surnames romanized as ...

and Charlotte Harbor to the north, and to San Carlos Bay and the

Caloosahatchee River The Caloosahatchee River is a river on the southwest Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States, approximately long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 18, 2011 It d ...

to the south. The Sound is conterminous with the Pine Island Sound Aquatic Preserve, which was established in 1970 and consists of of submerged land. Important habitats in the Sound include

mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several ...

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 ...

es,

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is domin ...

es,

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 a ...

communities,

tidal flats Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal f ...

and sponge beds. All animals in and around Pine Island sound, including mollusks, fish, birds and mammals, are affected by periodic outbreaks of

red tide A harmful algal bloom (HAB) (or excessive algae growth) is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural phycotoxin, algae-produced toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means. HABs are ...

(''

Karenia brevis ''Karenia brevis'' is a microscopic, single-celled, photosynthetic organism in the genus '' Karenia''. It is a marine dinoflagellate commonly found in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It is the organism responsible for the "Florida red tides" t ...

''). The Sound is relatively shallow in many locations, and boaters are cautioned to utilize up-to-date charts and tide tables. For thousands of years, the Sound was home to the

Calusa The Calusa ( ) were a Native American people of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region. Previous indigenous cultures had lived in the area for thousands of years. At the time of ...

Indians and their ancestors. The 67-acre

Pineland Archeological District The Pineland Archeological District (also known as Battey's Landing or Battey Place or the Pineland Site) is a U.S. historic district (designated as such on November 27, 1973) located on Pine Island, near Pineland, Florida, and next to Pine Is ...

faces the Sound on the western shore of Pine Island. The Pineland site features several shell mounds, including a burial mound. The

Mark Pardo Shellworks Site The Mark Pardo Shellworks Site is an archaeological site west of Bokeelia, Florida. It is located along the eastern edge of Cayo Costa Island in Cayo Costa State Park. On May 21, 1996, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Place ...

is on Cayo Costa Island, on the east side of the sound. Useppa Island, in the northern part of the sound, has a long history of occupation documented by archaeologists. In the 18th and 19th centuries Pine Island Sound was the site of seasonal camps used by Cubans catching fish for the Havana market. The Sound is also centerpiece of the

Great Calusa Blueway The Great Calusa Blueway is a paddling trail in Florida for kayakers, canoers, paddle boarders and other paddlers. It covers 190 miles meandering through the coastal waters and inland tributaries of Lee County, Florida. The Calusa Blueway Paddli ...

paddling trail, a 190-mile canoe and kayak trail.

References

Bodies of water of Lee County, Florida Sounds of Florida Marshes of Florida Wetlands of Florida Calusa {{LeeCountyFL-geo-stub