Rhode Island Sound
Rhode Island Sound is a strait of water, off the coast of the U.S. state of Rhode Island at mouth of Narragansett Bay. It forms the eastern extension of Long Island Sound and opens out the Atlantic Ocean between Block Island and Martha's Vineyard.
Geographically, Rhode Island Sound is the eastward extension of Block Island Sound. Northeast of Rhode Island Sound is Buzzards Bay. The Rhode Island Sound is approximately 2,500 km2 (970 sq mi) and has a maximum depth of 60 metres (200 ft). Average wave heights range from one to three metres (3.3 to 9.8 ft). Circulation and current strength are mostly impacted by the surrounding geology and not by wind strength. This causes the sea floor habitats in the Rhode Island Sound to be constantly changing.
Studies conducted in 2006 by the Coastal Marine and Geology Program and the Long Island Sound Resource Center used digital terrain models to make topographical depictions of unknown glacial features and bedforms. Newfound glacial features include an ice-sculptured bedrock surface, residual stagnant-ice-contact deposits, a recessional moraine, and exposed glaciolacustrine sediments. Modern bedforms consist of fields of transverse sand waves, barchanoid waves, giant scour depressions, and pockmarks). Bedform asymmetry from multibeam bathymetric data indicate that net sediment transport is westward across the northern part of the study area near Fishers Island, and eastward across the southern part near Great Gull Island. Compared to the Block Island Sound, the Rhode Island Sound is more prone to stratification since water currents are less dynamic in this area.
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