St. George's Banks

Georges Bank (formerly known as St. Georges Bank) is a large elevated area of the sea floor between Cape Cod, Massachusetts (United States), and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia (Canada). It separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean.

The origin of its name is obscure. The 1610 Velasco map, prepared for King James I of England, used the name "S. Georges Banck", a common practice when the name of the English patron saint, St. George, was sprinkled around the English-colonized world. By the 1850s, it was known simply as Georges Bank.

Georges Bank is the most westward of the great Atlantic fishing banks, the now-submerged portions of the North American mainland which now comprise the continental shelf running from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to Georges. Georges Bank was part of the North American mainland as recently as 12,000 years ago.

Roughly oval in shape, Georges Bank measures about 149 miles (240 kilometres) in length by 75 miles (120 kilometres) in width, making it larger than Massachusetts. Located 62 miles (100 kilometres) offshore, Georges Bank is part of the continental shelf. It is submerged to a depth of several metres to several dozen metres; almost the entire bank is at least 330 feet (100 m) shallower than the Gulf of Maine to the north.

Gulf of Maine shelf waters are the Bank's primary source. They enter the northern flank, move clockwise around the eastern end, and then westward along the southern flank, mostly emptying into the Mid-Atlantic Bight (the continental shelf ocean between Cape Hatteras and Georges Bank).

Georges Bank, while not having the most productive fishery in the world (the Grand Banks takes this claim), has great prominence in that it is probably the most geographically accessible of all the fishing banks in the North Atlantic. Lying adjacent to New England's famous seaports, Georges Bank is singlehandedly responsible for the development of coastal fisheries in towns such as Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

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