Chowder is a thick soup prepared with milk or cream, a roux, and seafood or vegetables. Oyster crackers or saltines may accompany chowders as a side item, and cracker pieces may be dropped atop the dish. Clam chowder from New England is typically made with chopped clams and diced potatoes, in a mixed cream and milk base, often with a small amount of butter. Other common chowders include seafood chowder, which often consists of fish, clams, and other types of shellfish; lamb or veal chowder made with barley; corn chowder, which uses corn instead of clams; various fish chowders; and potato chowder, which is often made with cheese. Fish, corn, and clam chowders are popular in North America, especially Atlantic Canada and New England.
The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word pelagic is derived from Ancient Greek πέλαγος (pélagos) 'open sea'. The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the surface of the sea and the bottom. Conditions in the water column change with depth: pressure increases; temperature and light decrease; salinity, oxygen, micronutrients all change. In a manner analogous to stratification in the Earth's atmosphere, the water column can be divided vertically into up to five different layers, with the number of layers depending on the depth of the water.
Clam chowder is any of several chowder soups in American cuisine containing clams. In addition to clams, common ingredients include diced potatoes, salt pork, and onions. Other vegetables are not typically used. It is believed that clams were used in chowder because of the relative ease of harvesting them. Clam chowder is usually served with saltine crackers or small, hexagonal oyster crackers.
Clam digging is a North American term for a common way to harvest clams from below the surface of the tidal sand flats or mud flats where they live. It is done both recreationally and commercially. Commercial digging in the U.S. and Canada is colloquially referred to as clamming, and is done by a clammer.
The Pacific razor clam, Siliqua patula, is a species of large marine bivalve mollusc in the family Pharidae.
The redear sunfish, also known as the shellcracker, Georgia bream, cherry gill, chinquapin, improved bream, and sun perch, is a freshwater fish in the family Centrarchidae and is native to the southeastern United States. Due to its popularity as a sport fish, it has been widely introduced across North America.
A fish plate is a Greek pottery vessel used by western, Hellenistic Greeks during the fourth century BC. Although invented in fifth-century BC Athens, most of the corpus of surviving painted fish plates originate in Southern Italy, where fourth-century BC Greek settlers, called "Italiotes," manufactured them.
Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure is a 2007 American IMAX 3D documentary film by National Geographic, about prehistoric marine reptiles. It alternates modern-day sequences about the work of scientists studying the animals with computer-animated scenes depicting the prehistoric past.
A fishing dredge, also known as a scallop dredge or oyster dredge, is a kind of dredge which is towed along the bottom of the sea by a fishing boat in order to collect a targeted edible bottom-dwelling species. The gear is used to fish for scallops, oysters and other species of clams, crabs, and sea cucumber. The dredge is then winched up into the boat and emptied. Dredges are also used in connection with the work of the naturalist in marine biology, notably on the Challenger Expedition.
Austrovenus stutchburyi, common name the New Zealand cockle or New Zealand little neck clam, is an edible saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family Veneridae, the Venus clams. Its Māori name is tuangi or tuaki.
The oceanic zone is typically defined as the area of the ocean lying beyond the continental shelf, but operationally is often referred to as beginning where the water depths drop to below 200 metres (660 ft), seaward from the coast into the open ocean with its pelagic zone.
The Austin Chalk is an upper Cretaceous geologic formation in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. It is named after type section outcrops near Austin, Texas. The formation is made up of chalk and marl.
The Britton Formation is a geologic formation deposited during the Middle Cenomanian to the Early Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous in modern-day East Texas. It forms the lower half of the Eagle Ford Group in the northern portion of East Texas. The formation was named by W. L. Moreman in 1932 for outcrops on Mountain Creek near the small town of Britton, south of Dallas. In the Dallas area it has been subdivided into the Six Flags Limestone, Turner Park Member, and Camp Wisdom Member. The Six Flags Limestone is a 3 ft thick fossiliferous calcarenite made up of pieces (prisms) of Inoceramus clams. The Turner Park and Camp Wisdom Members were subdivided based on the numerous volcanic ash beds (bentonites) found in the Turner Park, and the common occurrence of concretions in the Camp Wisdom. They are approximately 120 ft and 250 ft thick in the Dallas area. Thin sandstones known as the Templeton Member are found in Grayson County, north of Dallas, that are age equivalent to the lower part of the Turner Park Member. The Templeton Member was originally described as a part of the Woodbine, but it was recently placed in the Britton Formation of the Eagle Ford Group based on its age as derived by ammonites. Plesiosaur remains are among the vertebrate fossils that have been recovered from its strata.
The Inoceramidae are an extinct family of bivalves ("clams") in the Class Mollusca. Fossils of inoceramids are found in marine sediments of Permian to latest Cretaceous in age. Inoceramids tended to live in upper bathyal and neritic environments. Many species of inoceramid are found all over the world, demonstrating the wide distribution of their preferred ecosystems, and possibly long-lived planktotrophic larvae. Despite their wide distribution, the pace of evolution of inoceramids was great, with species ranges commonly averaging 0.2-0.5 Ma.
Pseudoperna is a genus of extinct very small oysters. Pseudoperna lived in tight groups. This small oyster is commonly found attached in groups to the shell of large species such as Inoceramus. Pycnodonte and Pseudoperna are preserved mostly as calcitic valves and are also found attached to Mytiloides.
The Cliff House Sandstone is a late Campanian stratigraphic unit comprising sandstones in the western United States.
Actinoceramus is an extinct genus of fossil saltwater clams, marine pteriomorphian bivalve molluscs. These bivalves were facultatively mobile infaunal suspension feeders.
The Arcadia Park Shale is a geologic formation within the Eagle Ford Group that outcrops in the northern portion of East Texas. It was deposited during the Middle to Late Turonian of the Late Cretaceous. It was originally described by W. L. Moreman from outcrops near the former Arcadia Park railway station west of downtown Dallas, where it is 100 ft thick. In the type area there is an unconformity between the Arcadia Park and the underlying Britton Formation. The base of the Arcadia Park is a thin limestone termed the Kamp Ranch Limestone. The Kamp Ranch Limestone is made up of broken pieces (prisms) of Inoceramus clams, and also contains shark's teeth. The remainder of the Arcadia Park in the Dallas area is shale with concretions. Sandstones are found within the Arcadia Park north of Dallas. The sandstones have been termed the Bells Sandstone Member for outcrops in Grayson County, and the Sub-Clarksville Sandstone in the subsurface. The shale overlying the Bells Sandstone has been named the Maribel Shale
The Eagle Ford Group is a sedimentary rock formation deposited during the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous over much of the modern-day state of Texas. The Eagle Ford is predominantly composed of organic matter-rich fossiliferous marine shales and marls with interbedded thin limestones. It derives its name from outcrops on the banks of the West Fork of the Trinity River near the old community of Eagle Ford, which is now a neighborhood within the city of Dallas. The Eagle Ford outcrop belt trends from the Oklahoma-Texas border southward to San Antonio, westward to the Rio Grande, Big Bend National Park, and the Quitman Mountains of West Texas. It also occurs in the subsurface of East Texas and South Texas, where it is the source rock for oil found in the Woodbine, Austin Chalk, and the Buda Limestone, and is produced unconventionally in South Texas and the "Eaglebine" play of East Texas.
