Dogger Bank
From MedBib.com - Medicine & Nature
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008) |
Dogger Bank (from dogge, an old Dutch word for fishing boat) is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about 100 km (62 mi) off the east coast of England. It extends over approximately 17,600 km2 (6,800 sq mi), with its maximum dimensions being about 260 km (162 mi) from north to south and 95 km (59 mi) from east to west. The water depth ranges from 15–36 metres (49–118 ft), about 20 metres (66 ft) shallower than the surrounding sea.
Contents |
Geography
Geologically, the feature is most likely a moraine, formed during the Pleistocene.[1] At times during the last ice age it was either land joined to the mainland or an island. Fishing trawlers working the area have dredged up large amounts of moor peat, remains of mammoth and rhinoceros, and occasionally Paleolithic hunting artefacts. The bank was part of a large landmass, known as Doggerland, which connected Britain to the European mainland until it was flooded at the end of the last ice age.[2]
In 1931, the largest earthquake ever recorded in the United Kingdom took place below the bank, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale. Its focus was 23 km beneath the bank, and the quake was felt in countries all around the North Sea, causing damage across eastern England.
The bank has been the site of several naval actions. During the War of American Independence, a Royal Navy squadron fought a Dutch squadron on August 5, 1781 in the Battle of Dogger Bank. During the Russo-Japanese War, Russian naval ships opened fire on British fishing boats in the Dogger Bank incident on October 21, 1904, mistaking them for Japanese torpedo boats. In the First World War, the area saw two Battles of Dogger Bank between the Royal Navy and the German High Seas Fleet. In 1966, the German submarine U-Hai sank during a gale, and is one of the worst peacetime naval disasters in German history.
Environmental
The bank is an important fishing area, with cod and herring being caught in large numbers. It gives its name to the Dogger region used in the BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast. Several shipwrecks lie on the bank.
Dogger Bank has been identified as an oceanic environment that exhibits high primary productivity throughout the year in the form of phytoplankton. As such, it has been proposed by various groups to make the area a designated Marine Nature Reserve.[3]
Wind farm
In January 2010, a license to develop a wind farm in Dogger Bank was granted to a consortium of developers. The wind farm is projected to develop up to 9 gigawatts of power, as part of a planned nine zone project of 32 gigawatts. Construction is scheduled to start around 2014 at the earliest. [4]
See also
- Dogger (boat), a type of fishing boat associated with the Dogger Bank area.
- Fishing in the North Sea
References
- ^ Stride, A.H (January 1959). "On the origin of the Dogger Bank, in the North Sea". Geological magazine 96 (1): 33-34. http://geolmag.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/1/33. Retrieved 12 january 2010.
- ^ University of Sussex, School of Life Sciences, C1119 Modern human evolution, Lecture 6, slide 23
- ^ "The Dogger Bank - A Potential MPA". WWF. http://www.ngo.grida.no/wwfneap/Publication/briefings/Dogger.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
- ^ "BBC News - New UK offshore wind farm licences are announced". news.bbc.co.uk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8448203.stm. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
Coordinates: 54°43′28.63″N 2°46′06.80″E / 54.7246194°N 2.768556°E
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
All material adapted used from Wikipedia is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?