estuary tide rift

We spent the day exploring the estuary where the Connecticut River, the largest river in New England, meets Long Island Sound. Estuaries are where freshwater rivers and streams meet the ocean and mix with the seawater. The Connecticut River estuary and tidal wetlands complex is listed under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

The annotated Ramsar List describes the Connecticut River Estuary & Tidal Wetlands Complex as "the longest and largest river system in New England. Shifting sandbars have preserved the river's extraordinary assemblage of natural and undisturbed plant and animal communities. The site includes open water; fresh, salt and brackish tidal wetlands; floodplains, river islands, beaches, and dunes. The system serves as essential habitat for numerous regionally, nationally, and globally rare or otherwise significant species and forms an extensive biological corridor that links marine and estuarine waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Many migratory and Neotropical bird species nest or winter in the marshes, which regularly support over 10,000 individuals, consisting of 18 species of waterfowl."

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• estuary
• tide
• rift