Suisun Bay
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Suisun Bay (pronounced "suh-soon") is a shallow tidal estuary located in central California, USA. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and forms the entrance to the Sacramento Delta, an inverted river delta. Suisun Marsh is the tidal marsh land located to the north of the bay. The marsh is the largest marsh in California.
The bay was named in 1811, after the Suisunes, a Native American tribe of the area. The word originates with the Patwin and is the namesake of Suisun City, Suisun River, and the Suisun Valley.
On its western end, Suisun Bay is drained by the Carquinez Strait, which connects to San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of San Francisco Bay.
In addition to the major bridges at the Carquinez Strait, it is spanned in its center by the Benicia-Martinez Bridge and at its eastern end by the highway 160 crossing (Also Known As The Antioch Bridge) between Antioch and Oakley.
It is especially famous for hosting the anchorage of the Ghost Fleet, a collection of U.S. Navy and merchant reserve ships, created in the period following World War II. Many of these ships were removed for sale as scrap metal during the 1990s (being towed to Japan and mostly returned as automobiles), but over 80 ships still remain at anchor in the bay. This location also held at anchor the famous Glomar Explorer after its once secret but now famous attempt to recover a lost, sunken Soviet submarine. The Glomar Explorer has now been activated for other duties fitting its original "cover", which was deep ocean seabead mineral exploration and recovery.
From 1913 until 1954, the Sacramento Northern Railway, an electrified interurban line, crossed Suisun Bay with the Ramon, a distillate-powered train ferry.
On April 28, 2004, a petroleum pipeline operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners ruptured, spilling an estimated 1,500 barrels (240 m²) of diesel fuel into the bay.
[edit] External links
- Kinder Morgan Information Regarding Pipeline Release
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
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